


All The Magic I Have Known

by burn_it_slow



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, POV Alternating, Suicidal Ideation, Underage Drinking, magical au, modern fairy tale, slow burn or die
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-29
Updated: 2020-01-05
Packaged: 2020-07-24 21:01:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 44,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20020960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/burn_it_slow/pseuds/burn_it_slow
Summary: The Kingdom of Henrietta, ruled by Ganseys for generations, keeps a tight hold on the village of Cabeswater in order to control and contain its forest magic. Adam’s determined to fight for Cabeswater’s freedom. Ronan’s determined to guard Henrietta’s prince.





	1. Shapes

_Sandra's seen a leprechaun,_  
_Eddie touched a troll,_  
_Laurie danced with witches once,_  
_Charlie found some goblins' gold._  
_Donald heard a mermaid sing,_  
_Susy spied an elf,_  
_But all the magic I have known_  
_I've had to make myself._

\--Shel Silverstein

Ronan Lynch never wanted to see another hospital room in his life. 

He’d finally been discharged, and he was never looking back.

He understood why his brother had insisted. He didn’t even disagree, really. But that didn’t make it any less miserable to be stuck there for weeks, eating soup and plastic cups of pudding. Nothing that required the use of a knife.

They hadn’t even trusted him with a real bed. He’d been on a weird rubber mattress on the floor, and he’d instantly start sweating again now just thinking about it.

The doctors and therapist and social worker wanted to make sure Ronan wasn’t a threat to himself or to others. He couldn’t exactly explain that they were wasting their time on him, that the real culprit was an ugly, perplexing dream magic that had plagued Ronan for years. For as long as he could remember, if he got hurt in a dream, the injury would transfer to reality. If he spent his night dreaming about wrestling an ice dragon, he’d wake up wearing the purple gashes across his ribs.

He’d at least expected his brother and his best friends to understand that he hadn’t done it on purpose. He’d confessed the magic to them so they’d quit panicking.

But, as they’d all pointed out in their different ways, the dreams came from Ronan’s head in the first place, even the ones that wondered, quite violently and efficiently, what it’d be like if Ronan Lynch could do the world a favor and just stop existing.

And they weren’t wrong.

* * *

  
“Where are we,” Ronan blinked awake from the passenger seat of Noah’s ridiculous little car. He hadn’t meant to fall asleep, but he was halfway tired all the time now; the new dream-muting sleeping pills were not fucking around. “Are we out past the wall?”

“There’s a market out here that Henry told me about,” Noah looked over his shoulder and proceeded to do the worst parallel parking job Ronan had ever seen. One tire was halfway up on the curb. “It’s only open on Saturday mornings.”

Was it a Saturday? Ronan rubbed at his eyes.

“You said we could do whatever I wanted,” Noah unfastened his seat belt and looked over at Ronan imploringly. It was an obnoxiously effective trick of his.

“Fine. I know.”

Ronan had apologized to Noah more than once, back in the hospital. But the words alone had felt so frustratingly shallow. Ronan hated the inadequacy of words. So he was still saying it in various ways, usually in letting himself get dragged along to whatever shit idea Noah had come up with that day to provide a deliberate distraction.

Ronan would allow it. Whatever Noah wanted. It was all he could think to do. Noah had _found_ him like that.

And besides, the distraction thing had turned out to be useful. Without Noah’s ceaseless field trips or Gansey’s determined magical research, or even his older brother’s annoying questions, Ronan had nothing left but boredom and grief and self-destructive instincts.

He no longer had to worry about the preppy hellhole that was Aglionby Academy. Ronan had desperately wanted out of that zombie factory of a school, so much so that he’d unexcused-absenced himself into academic suspension anyway before his senior year had even begun.

Declan, now technically Ronan’s legal guardian, had only agreed to allow Ronan to withdraw from school on the condition that he sign a contract into the Lynch family’s long tradition of Henriettan Royal Guard service.

It had been an easy choice at the time, but now it was increasingly clear that Ronan had only managed to trade one miserably fake mask of a life for another. Gansey and Henry were graduating soon and moving onto other things, and Noah had played in at least seven different but equally terrible bands in as many months, but Ronan was stuck playing soldier. Indefinitely.

Ronan tripped sluggishly through crowds of Borderlanders and followed Noah, trying not to lose sight of his friend’s white-blonde head among the rows of blocky homemade soaps and twisted wire jewelry and brightly painted incense burners. The mixed fragrances hooked into Ronan’s gut and clawed up a surge of nausea; he was still sweating whiskey from the previous night, and this place was blasting the volume on his hangover.

This particular street fair crawled out of the woodwork and spread like mold over the crooked paving stones and dilapidated storefronts. They were in the heart of the Borderlands; it was a place Ronan generally ventured at night, out of uniform, where he wouldn’t be recognized. The current daylight context was confusing.

His reasons for visiting were usually: adrenaline; denial; penance. These remedies were best chased under cover of darkness.

Ronan had always been halfway freaked out by the Borderlands. Their tendency toward the occult was deeply unsettling to him in a way that evoked bits of intoned sermons and prayers for impure thoughts to be forgiven. Their incense burned too sickly sweet, and their candles were too close to the ones in his church featuring painted-on saints with flattened eyes.

At the same time, though, Ronan rode out the occasional thrill in a village bubbling with anger and defiance. Sometimes those serene expressions hid a deep, stirring rebelliousness that whispered to Ronan’s blood.

He couldn’t claim their cause, of course; he knew the luck of his own birth well enough to understand the gap of privilege. The Lynch family’s fortune went well beyond their public ties to the Crown for generations. Ronan himself had been raised like a brother to the actual Prince of Henrietta. 

“Ronan, look!”

Noah had come to a sudden halt, and Ronan swore as he barely caught himself before knocking the boy flat. Noah was several years older than Ronan but still often mistaken for a high school kid.

They were standing beside a rack of shimmering polyester scarves in turquoise, golden orange, deep indigo, cranberry and crimson … it was hard to focus on whatever Noah was yelling about. Ronan’s head swam again.

“Not those. Ronan, come on, look, it’s a fortune teller!”

“...So?” Ronan looked warily in the direction Noah was now pointing. It was an outrageously purple tent beside them, with an oversized neon sign mounted at its peak. The sign was a stylized, lit-up hand, with a creepy red eye at its center.

“So you said we could do whatever I wanted!”

“I already came here, man. To the Borderlands with you. I draw the line at getting scammed, like … on purpose, that shit is a racket.”

“Oh, come on. It’ll be fun! Maybe I can ask _them_ what to get Gan-- our friend,” Noah corrected himself, glancing around guiltily. “For his graduation present.”

“I think you know exactly why you can’t ask someone here about that.”

“I don’t have to tell them who I’m talking about. I can just say a friend.”

“Well if they’re actual fucking fortune tellers then why can’t they figure that out with their psychic powers.”

“I’ll be careful, okay? Ronan, please, you said we could--”

“Christ,” Ronan held his forehead. Noah had been wandering slowly closer, his gaze all wistful and irritatingly cute, and now Noah had managed to make eye contact with one of the vultures inside the tent. She was tall and leggy, draped in a clingy orange beaded dress that was slit up her thigh. She’d probably have Noah breathless and starry-eyed in five minutes.

Noah clung to Ronan’s arm, squeezing imploringly.

“Hi there. Are you looking for some answers today? Or some guidance?” the woman hustled straight over to Noah, like she had some kind of urgent fucking message to deliver. “I’d love to see what the cards say about you. And your … companion, here?”

“Can you really see our future?” Noah’s eyes were wide. “I want to try it out! Both of us!”

Ronan rolled his eyes and shifted his weight impatiently. He really and truly hated this shit. Not just because these asshole fake psychics loved to prey on the weak and gullible and vulnerable, squeezing them out of their last dime just to tell them some vague platitudes that could apply to anyone. But there was also the part where he wondered if their crystal ball or whatever would just once make a lucky roll of the dice and produce one of the hundred jagged shards buried deep in Ronan’s head.

“We offer several different services, if the cards aren’t your cup of tea,” the tall one turned the full wattage of her flirty smile onto Ronan. He couldn’t help flinching a little, like she was looking right through him. Her lips drew together in a more thoughtful little pout, and then her face cleared.

Obviously she was good at what she did, because she wasn’t going to waste her charms on him any further. Instead she narrowed her eyes briefly, then turned to call to someone over her shoulder.

“Adam!” she demanded. “I need you up front for a reading. Now.”

Ronan was not going to let himself even consider that this witch had taken one look at him and-

“Orla, do you want these herbs crushed or not,” a soft but practical, vaguely accented voice flipped its way toward the front table, and it was only natural for Ronan to follow the sound with his eyes, just as anyone would, to see who was speaking.

The boy -- _Adam_ \-- was leaning over what looked like a mad scientist’s shelf in the back, his frankly disgustingly yellowed shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows. It had been a white shirt once, perhaps. Years ago.

Ronan was now standing close enough to make out the boy’s tanned forearms, his noticeably bony wrists, his long and careful fingers cradling a marbled stone club, grinding something ruthlessly and methodically into a matching stone bowl with a quick, expert twist of his hand every half second.

“That can wait,” the tall girl waved a jeweled hand dismissively, snapping Ronan out of his trance. Ronan blinked, disoriented at first, and then guilty, catching the way Noah was side-eyeing him with amusement.

It was difficult to guess the boy’s age. At first glance he seemed maybe eighteen or so, but his weirdly wide-set eyes looked weary and jaded in a way that would seem more natural on a man in his forties. He was setting his tools aside and wiping broad palms on the stained khaki-colored apron that covered him sternum to knees.

The boy swiped at his brow with the backs of his knuckles, and Ronan could actually see him adjusting his expression to one of polite compliance before he came closer and sank onto a stool at his side of the table. His apron bunched and wrinkled at his waist, barely visible behind the tie-dyed tablecloth.

“Ronan, come on, just sit down, be nice,” Noah whispered.

He stalled a little longer, watching the boy retrieve a deck of cards from somewhere and begin to free them from their ribbon binding, pinching the ends of rose-colored velvet and tugging delicately but firmly so the bow would come undone.

Ronan bit off a mildly satisfying but still pointless chain of curses and hiked a boot irritably over the bench, landing on Noah’s left and shooting him his nastiest glare. It bounced right off Noah, of course, who had let go of him now, his eyebrows high with delight and excitement.

“This is stupid,” Ronan hissed at Noah, but it didn’t matter. Noah was holding his hand out, palm up, and the woman before him was already babbling at him about visions of future possibilities or whatever.

“So, um. Do you want a full reading today?” the boy’s gaze had not lifted from the cards he was calmly shuffling. Ronan sighed and watched as the cards shifted and slid into place, then jumped away from each other again in a little arc. The whispering sound was cunningly soft and appealing.

Ronan shook his head, more in refusal to himself than to the question; he was not falling for this shit.

“So just, like ... a quick three-card reading, then? Past, present, future? It’s twenty even.”

This boy had the strangest coloring, really. His skin was dry and rough and golden brown in places, tanned and scattered with freckles across the bridge of his long nose. But his brows and lashes and the roots of the hair at his temples were so fair that they were barely even visible. His eyebrows were just faint suggestions of spun gold. Had they been stripped of color by the same sun that had baked his cheekbones and so evenly bronzed the backs of his arms?

“I’m not really that good with palmistry,” Adam just kept talking, keeping up a string of quiet attempts at engaging customer service while Ronan tried to fight this infuriating compulsion to stare at him. “I can try, though, if you’d prefer. I know the basics, at least.”

Adam tilted his head in the direction of his boss or co-worker or whatever, orange dress girl, who had urged Noah closer and was caressing his fingers, flattening his palm in hers, bending close as he shifted restlessly and hung on her every word--

“No,” Ronan gritted his teeth and tugged self-consciously at the long, dark sleeves of his cotton shirt, until he was sure his wrists were completely hidden. “No, the cards are -- whatever, do the card thing, just get it over with.”

Ronan reached for his wallet, pulling out a twenty and slapping it onto the table in surrender. His temples were throbbing.

“All right. So. I’m Adam.”

“Good for you.”

Adam gave the cards one more deft shuffle, watching them seriously. He appeared to be hiding a laugh, tucking it away inside his cheek. Ronan didn’t care that the kid had been trying to get a name out of him in return. Twenty bucks was more than enough already. This pretty little vulture wasn’t getting shit else.

“Your turn,” Adam tapped the cards up on their side twice, so they came together neatly, and then deposited the deck in front of Ronan. “Please try to focus on a question, if you have one for the cards today. Or just an area of your life that you’d like some general guidance about.”

“The fuck are you even getting paid for here? _I_ have to shuffle them?”

“A little, yes. If you don’t mind. It’s supposed to help with the reading,” Adam was actually smirking now, biting at his lip. Ronan could actually see him go through the thought process of _don’t laugh at this guy, you need him to fork over his cash_ , as his face drew into a more neutral expression.

Ronan rolled his eyes and grabbed for the cards. He wasn’t getting out of this. Noah was over there asking orange dress girl if she _saw_ his band ever releasing an album.

Ronan had played plenty of poker by then and could shuffle a regular deck of cards with his eyes closed, but these cards were oversized, and he was feeling particularly clumsy. He fumbled with them, his irritation making his movements jumpy and rushed.

Adam was watching him more openly now. Ronan could sense it. His fingers shook as he stacked the cards sloppily and hastily. With the full weight of Adam’s gaze on him, he was too busy being stunned by the pale and cloudy blue of this boy’s eyes to remember what the hell he was supposed to be focusing on.

This was bullshit, anyway. Ronan supposed if he was paying good money to sit here and be hustled then at least he could admire the view while he got ripped off.

“Here,” Ronan dumped the cards back onto the table.

“Okay, great. Can you just cut the deck for me real quick?”

“Jesus. Didn’t realize I’d have to do everything myself,” Ronan grumbled, separating somewhere near half the deck and slapping it down to the side.

“Um. Thanks,” Adam’s mouth quirked again, almost too fast to catch. He reassembled the deck from where Ronan had cut it, and his long fingers hovered over the cards for a good three seconds before he carefully flipped the first three onto the table in a row in front of him.

The card faces were weird-looking, predictably creepy like all of this other occult shit. Ronan shrank back a bit, scanning the artwork in a panicked attempt to determine how many of his secrets this boy was going to try and yank out of him, one by one.

There sure were a whole lot of blades all over those cards, if Ronan was not mistaken. Knives, maybe. Some of them were piercing a giant heart, which felt about right, if cartoonishly oversimplified for Ronan’s tastes. Then another shitload of swords were stuck into the ground around what looked like a blindfolded girl. The last card was a dude holding a wand or something -- a fucking _wizard?_ This was beyond childish.

“Oh,” Adam’s blonde eyebrows lifted as he took in each card carefully, one by one and back again. “Well this is … this actually makes a lot of sense.”

“Did you mean to sound so surprised about that?” Ronan muttered. He kept going back to that heart getting stabbed all to hell, and he tried not to wince.

“I’m not really as good at this as they are,” Adam offered in a conspiratorial whisper, glancing around at the other psychics running their racket. “But this - this I can read. You’ve suffered a lot of pain. Loss. You’re still grieving, maybe?”

Ronan did not take the bait. He knew how this worked; they’d start guessing and making vague statements until they latched you and you opened up and were all ‘oh yes they must be talking about my murdered father and comatose mother’ -- or fucking … _whatever_ \-- and then you were pissing away more money to hear how wonderful and special you were.

He kept his mouth shut and glared. The boy sucked in his bottom lip and looked away, back down to the cards, moving on to the second one.

“Okay and this, this represents your current situation,” Adam tapped the picture of the lady surrounded by giant swords. “This means that it still feels like a trap. Like you can’t get free, no matter what you do. But you see how the swords don’t go all the way around her? There’s still a way out, if she can just look at it right.”

Ronan folded his arms and glanced sideways, out at the obnoxiously loud crowds of people crawling through the street. For a moment he pictured them being herded by royal soldiers after their Crown-enforced curfew. He tried to picture himself as one of the uniformed guards yelling at them to get back inside.

“How’s she supposed to _look at it right_ if she’s fucking blind,” Ronan demanded, flicking the card in irritation.

“Well, that’s the thing, isn’t it? She’s not actually blind. That’s just a blindfold. Those can come off.”

“Great. Easy as that, then, huh? What the hell is _this_ supposed to be,” Ronan found himself demanding, picking up the third card so he could see it better.

“That’s my favorite card,” Adam grinned at him. Out of nowhere, for honestly no discernible reason. Just full-on smiled, all radiant light and crinkly world-wise eyes, and Ronan dropped the card instantly. He couldn’t get rid of it fast enough.

He swallowed hard and hugged his arms around himself again, trying to cage himself in, to restrain his burning ribs, this guy was just playing him, the way he was fucking _beaming_ , like Ronan had earned it.

“That represents your future. It’s a good sign. It means you’re going to be okay. You have to learn to trust yourself. You can take control of things, you know? Your own life? This says you can make it happen. You just have to focus on it. You have to work for what you really want. It’s not gonna be easy, or pretty. But you can do it.”

Ronan thought his own nails might be scratching through the fabric of his shirtsleeves. This was the stuff that people bought into. He could feel the edge of that cliff siren-singing to him just then. The prospect of having this boy _see_ him, _all_ of him, and then press a careful fingertip to each of his bruises and scars, whispering prayers of safety and belonging and praise, smiling sweetly while the world collapsed around them.

“So, what, maybe for another twenty you reveal all the secrets, right?” he flipped each of the cards back over, until they were all the same. Anonymous. “Then another twenty for the answers to those questions. You think I don’t know how this bullshit works? You think I’m gonna let a total stranger just jack up the hood on my personal trauma and fuck around inside?”

“This is supposed to be for general guidance. To contemplate. I mean … you’re right, I don’t have any simple solutions, if you want me to be honest,” the boy shrugged, slowly and sheepishly replacing the cards one by one onto the top of his deck and sliding Ronan’s cash into a drawer beneath the table.

“What am I even paying for, then? Guided meditation? Are we done here?”

“Well. There’s, um,” Adam glanced over at Noah and Ronan’s eyes followed; Noah and Orla were still deep in conversation. Adam’s voice got lower and more conspiratorial. “There’s something I think you should take with you.”

Ronan lifted an eyebrow and rested his elbow on the table, leaning forward and drumming his fingers against his cheek.

“Yeah? What’s that gonna cost,” Ronan grumbled.

“Nothing. Nothing, you already paid, just … give me a second.”

The boy leaned down to pick through a crate beneath the table, his expression determined and pensive. Then he seemed to come upon the item he’d searched for and sat up again, sliding a little grey suede pouch across the table like this was some kind of negotiation. He had leaned even closer, the little shit, and his conspiratorial gaze was giving Ronan a cold sweat.

“What is this,” Ronan only committed the tip of one finger to investigating this object, at first. But the curiosity was monumental. He pulled on leather drawstrings and peeked inside the pouch, then shook out what looked like a metal keychain. There was a round, flat stone at the center, milky white, but laced with little patches and rays of shimmering neon colors.

“It’s a charm for inspiration. So you can focus on finding your way free of whatever it is. Opals are supposed to be good for imagination and creativity, you know? And, um … God, okay, look, it’s just a stone. But take it. For my sake. Make me feel better about having charged you full price. I’m only an apprentice.”

Ronan looked warily from the keychain to the boy and back again, tilting the stone back and forth in his fingers, watching the colors jump.

“You’re not all that great at this hustling thing,” Ronan observed, keeping a bolder eye on Adam, who was watching him back very intently. “You know? Should probably stick to the herb grinding.”

“Probably,” Adam laughed, a silent and abrupt event. “Look, I know you didn’t want to do this. It was nice of you to put up with it for, um … for your boyfriend, so. I want you to get your money’s worth.”

“My _what_? Jesus! Some psychic you turned out to be,” Ronan shoved the charm back into its pouch. 

“Oh. Uh. Sorry,” Adam’s gaze skipped over Ronan’s face, his shoulders, arms, everywhere. Ronan felt very exposed and uncomfortably sweaty all over.

Sometimes he couldn’t shake these hangovers until it got dark out again.

“You don’t look sorry,” Ronan said.

“Is he, um … not your type?” Adam glanced at Noah.

“He has a boyfriend and it’s not me. Are you not picking up on that with your extrasensory fucking perception?”

“Right,” Adam shrugged unevenly, the corner of his lips twitching. “Well. Thanks for stopping by. I’ll get back to my herb grinding.”

Ronan was clutching that little fabric bag so tightly that he was sure he’d be able to see the angry red impression in his skin for hours afterward. Adam shot him another sly, incandescent smile, still for no good reason other than to fuck up Ronan’s shit all day long.

“You ready?” Noah startled him with an insistent grip on Ronan’s arm. “Come on! Orla told me about a diner near here that makes a hangover omelette, she said it’s like a … a miracle cure.”

Ronan scrambled away from the bench, a bit too frantically to look nonchalant about it.

“So? What did you think? Of your reading?” Noah’s fingers dug into Ronan’s bicep. “Orla said there’s something big coming, a crisis in Henrietta, and I’ll see it happen. She says I should be _vigilant_. She said that word! Like, specifically.”

Ronan barely registered Noah’s breathless account as they exited the tent. He only allowed himself one glance back, where he saw Adam still watching him in a curious, measured way, leaning on the table as if he had nothing else to do, even though more customers were pushing their way in for a turn at having their fortunes read. Ronan gulped and turned back toward the crowd again, shoving the little pouch deep into his jeans pocket.

_You can take control of things, you know? Your own life._

It was a siren’s song, after all. A stupid fantasy. That boy didn’t know Ronan, didn’t know what the fuck he was talking about, all the reasons those words were just too good to be true. But maybe that was why the words kept echoing compulsively in Ronan’s head for hours afterward.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I'm trying something new (to me): posting chapters from a WIP that is only about 60% done. Well, RE-done. I've rewritten this thing WAY too many times now, I keep letting it sit for months on end, and I need some actual motivation to finally finish it. Some lovely writer friends have read previous (old!!) versions of this story, and I can't thank y'all enough - @veronicahague, @lydia-st-james, @spikenards - you probably won't recognize much past this chapter, but please know I took all of your kind and patient words to heart, and I couldn't have fixed any of it without you. Thank you <3 (All of the mistakes you'll see in this new version are my own)
> 
> I am determined to exorcise this from my brain and my Google docs before the new book comes out in November, so. Here we are. I'll keep updating when I can. I wish I could post a chapter a day like in Ye Olden Days of Before Renee Had a 50-Hours-Per-Week Stress-Crying Job but alas. If y'all like the beginning, maybe it'll help kick my ass into finally finishing it. If not, I can just let it go and just look forward to CDTH. WHATEVER YOU WANT!! OKAY THANKS I LOVE U
> 
> (ps the chapter titles are songs from a playlist once again. Tigers, stripes, yadda yadda)


	2. Weekend

No matter how he shifted around in the little pull-out bed, Adam Parrish’s lower back never stopped registering complaints.

It didn’t help, of course, that one of his various part-time jobs involved him being hunched over car engines for hours at a time, and another had him lifting endless plastic-wrapped cases of water and soda and canned foods from palettes to conveyor belts.

Helping out at his adopted family’s fortune-telling booth should have been a breeze, then, in comparison. But Adam hated it more than the others, because, quite frankly, he was terrible at it. The constant sting of failure hurt much more deeply than any backache or blisters or the occasional splattering burn of battery acid.

He wasn’t cut out for the Fox Way business. He had no psychic gifts or magic to speak of. But Orla insisted on scheduling him anyway, and one did not argue marketing strategy with Orla.

Adam gave up on trying to squeeze in twelve more minutes of sleep and hauled himself out of bed.

It was a dreary gray morning; never good for sales at an open-air market. Orla’s practiced, magnetic Customer Service Smile was already wavering as she paced a complicated, strategic circuit in front of their booth, scanning the crowd for anyone dumb enough to make direct eye contact. Adam took a risk and slid his physics worksheet out from under the basket of herbed sachets he’d been tying with ribbon.

Across the aisle, behind the tent advertising an inexplicable combination of impostor cologne and cell phone chargers, Adam could already spot the usual seedy clientele loitering out back for the infamous Cabeswater black-market moonshine. It was an open secret every weekend. The clear alcohol was distilled to an illegal, ridiculous potency and sold in unlabeled glass jars for outrageous prices. God, it was barely noon, and these degenerates were already lining up to fork over cash for what would inevitably be the most brutal hangover of their lives.

One of the customers stood out sharply against the others, all dark angles and shadows, scathingly handsome in the manner of a switchblade, or a thunderous waterfall with sharp rocks at the bottom. He didn’t exactly blend in.

He was also noticeable in the way he’d been staring straight at Adam.

The guy glanced away immediately when caught. It was too late, though; Adam had already recognized him. He’d been at the booth a week ago, maybe, and Adam had faked his way through reading this guy’s fortune with tarot cards.

The dude was definitely an asshole, but he had ice-blue eyes and lethal cheekbones, and he looked like he could probably bench press Blue Sargent without breaking a sweat. He’d been ... memorable.

Adam’s wares sat forgotten on the table as he leaned on his elbows, gazing intently at this former customer of his, foolishly willing him to look back again. It wasn’t in Adam’s nature to entertain gut feelings, but something instinctive made him feel absolutely sure that the guy would look back.

Blue eyes made their way toward him again, and Adam felt a strange surge of triumph. With a significant glance over at the moonshine tent, Adam tried to convey a warning, grimacing and shaking his head, but the guy only seemed to grow more defiant, smirking and rolling his eyes. Adam watched as the line progressed and his customer traded some crumpled cash for a quart-sized jar full of rotgut, shoved away in a brown paper bag. The guy shrugged back at Adam with a challenging, _what are you gonna do to stop me_ look, and then disappeared again.

It wasn’t the only Saturday Adam saw him. Once Adam had inadvertently memorized the guy’s dark figure, Adam started noticing him every weekend, here and there, always looking like trouble. He never approached Adam again, but he’d occasionally pause for a defiant glare. Adam had earned himself a new nemesis, but he wasn’t sure what they were at war about.

“Maybe he’s in a gang or something,” Adam wondered aloud to Blue, holding his cheek in his palm as he leaned on the fortune-telling counter. “Maybe he sells drugs and this is his territory now.”

“Have you been watching too much T.V. in the breakroom at work?” Blue asked, unimpressed. “Look, maybe you should stay away from him regardless.”

“I _am_ staying away!”

“If you stare any harder you’re gonna burn holes through his jacket.”

“He seemed like he’d been through something terrible. Y’know?”

“I thought you were the only other one around here who did not go around diagnosing people’s psychic conditions. Go get his number if you want to find out so bad.”

“I don’t even know for sure if he’s into guys.”

“He walks by here and checks you out an awful lot for someone who isn’t.”

“You don’t know he’s …” Adam faltered, tapping a white ceramic pestle against its mortar to dislodge bits of dried elderberry.

“Okay,” Blue nodded with a grin and left Adam at the herb cart so she could finish restocking seashell charms.

* * *

Adam’s shift that day was blessedly short, as he was already on the schedule at the auto body shop from three till ten, and there was a clear family rule that Adam’s better-paying jobs took precedence over the market stall.

Orla wasn’t pleased with his performance, anyway. She swore he could make enough tips to quit at least the warehouse job, if he’d just mind her tutelage about cold reading, and learn to be more mysteriously confident, like her, and also wear tighter shirts. But as far as his psychic abilities, he was a lost cause.

He clocked out of the garage at ten-fifteen -- still enough time to go meet Blue behind the service door at the diner and see if she’d scored any extra food. She waited tables there, and the kitchen almost always had some order that was messed up or maybe some leftovers from a catering gig. The food was greasy and regrettable, but neither of them had ever been in a position to turn it down.

Adam’s stomach rumbled, either from hunger or just a preemptive protest against another styrofoam box of salty chicken wings. Either way, he was distracted enough that he didn’t spot the boy haunting the dark alley until he had basically tripped over him.

Adam jumped away in shock, standing back to steady himself. He’d stumbled over an unexpected, giant black boot, thrust carelessly into the narrow passage behind the diner. And sitting there with one knee pulled to his chest was a very familiar figure, tall and broody and sharp, swaying slightly and spitting a mouthful of blood beside him onto the asphalt.

“Oh, awesome. Of course it’s fuckin’ _you_ ,” the guy slurred out a gravelly greeting. 

“It’s Adam.”

“Whatever.”

Adam stood there for a moment with his arms crossed, evaluating his options and his feelings. Maybe there was something about this guy having been a tarot customer that gave Adam a strange sense of responsibility? Possibly. Or maybe it was the way this guy looked in those shredded jeans.

Adam leaned down a bit, so he could see better.

“What happened to you,” he asked, clearly and slowly, tracking the way this stranger was swaying slightly and keeping his eyes shut tight in a perpetual wince.

“I dunno, man. What do your … your _psychic powers_ tell you?”

“Okay, you know what? I don’t actually care,” Adam muttered, straightening up and heading to the service door. He knocked loudly three times to let Blue know he was outside, and after a few seconds she was poking her head out into the alley, her hair held off her face with a purple bandana.

“Hey. I saved you an order of mozzarella sticks,” Blue said, straightening her apron. “Been a crazy night. Had to call the cops twice already.”

“I think they forgot one of their detainees,” Adam nodded his head toward the alley; Blue opened the door wider to look.

“Oh, yeah, I forgot that one of them was your crush, here. You sure can pick ‘em.”

“Blue."

“Okay, well, just so you know, your _friend_ is now banned from the premises, officially. But I’m not saying the jerk he punched didn’t have it coming. Grabbed Josie’s ass at least twice now. I’d deck him myself, if I could reach.”

“Mm,” Adam felt his mouth twisting up indecisively. “Okay, look, do y’all have a first aid kit back there?”

“Sure. I’ll grab it. You know I need to close up soon, though.”

“I know. Won’t take long.”

Adam chewed at his bottom lip; he could see his former customer watching him warily now, occasionally shifting around against the wall, tilting forward and holding his side. Bruised rib or two, maybe? That wasn’t something Adam could fix.

Blue’s first aid kit was minimal at best; Adam also swiped a scratchy towel from where it was tucked into Blue’s apron. He sat gingerly on the pavement next to the curled-up stranger and popped open the metal box bearing a large red cross on the front.

“The hell are you doing, fortune teller.”

“How about you start by giving me this,” Adam stole the half-empty fifth of whiskey from where it had been sitting on the curb and set it as far away as possible, out of the guy’s reach entirely.

“You’re a -- a fast little fucker. Gimme that back.”

“Sit still,” Adam braced the guy’s shoulders against the wall.

“Ow! Jesus.”

“Did you get hit on your side? Somewhere along here?” Adam probed carefully between an open sweatshirt and a cotton tank top, pressing his fingers just enough to see if he’d get a reaction. “You shouldn’t pick fights you can’t win.”

“What makes you think I didn’t win?”

Adam looked up at the cocky, uneven grin and rolled his eyes.

“Anyway,” the guy squirmed, his drunken confidence waning rapidly. “I’d do a little better if these assholes didn’t travel in packs.”

“Okay, okay, I don’t care, just -- sit still.”

“Quit _poking_ me. I know what cracked ribs feel like. I’m fine.”

“If you’re fine then why are you just sitting here alone in the dark? Someone must have come here with you, right? Where’s your phone? Did you drive here?”

“Why don’t you--”

“If you ask me to consult my crystal ball, I swear … You can just sit here and bleed.”

“You seem a little sensitive about your psychic gifts, y-- _ow_ , fuck!”

“I bet it’s just bruised,” Adam noted, his hand having been shoved away from the examination site. “If it were cracked you wouldn’t be able to breathe, much less insult me right now.”

“I told you I was fine.”

“Okay, let me just--” 

Adam slid a knuckle beneath his patient’s jaw and tried not to get distracted by wide eyes suddenly staring back at him like they belonged to a cornered fawn.

He just needed to make sure the blood was coming from outside and not inside. If this guy was coughing up blood, he needed to go to an urgent care place. If it was just surface-level, though, Adam could bandage him up and be done with this mess.

Such cold blue eyes for someone with dark hair. It was an arresting effect, that color combination--

 _Focus, Adam_.

He dabbed at the blood on his patient’s cheek, earning a couple more winces and curses as he approached the actual wound. But it seemed to be on the surface, which was good.

“Did you drive here?” Adam asked again, rummaging around in the first aid kit to see what it had to offer. “Are you alone?”

The stranger, whose eyes were carefully tracking his movements, hesitated for a second and then nodded.

“Can someone come get you? Cabs are kind of scarce out here.”

“M’not leaving my car here all night.”

“You don’t really have a choice. Where’d you park?”

“Over … there. Somewhere. Definitely.”

Adam tried to swallow a laugh at this, but didn’t exactly pull it off. He examined his work: he’d cleaned away most of the blood, and it didn’t look like his patient was going to come away with any scars. Adam applied a couple of tiny bandages to the guy’s temple, but there wasn’t much to be done about the swelling.

“We need some ice,” Adam said, more to himself than anything. “Look, do you have a phone? You must have someone we can call.”

“Mm,” the guy grimaced, then patted around his pockets. He produced a slim, expensive-looking phone, cracked all the way up the front screen. “Text Noah. He’s in there.”

“You can’t text him yourself?”

The guy shrugged and deposited his phone into Adam’s hands, then slumped back against the wall, completely disinterested in this process. Adam sighed and searched for contacts, noting that his patient was also going to need attention at his raw and bleeding knuckles.

There were only a few names listed in the phone, so it was simple enough to find “Noah.” Adam had to poke around a little bit, but he finally figured out how to get a new text message to send. It’d be weird to explain the whole situation, so he just kept it simple: **_Hi, I’m at the Cabeswater Diner, can you come get me?_ **

Adam set the phone gingerly on the curb beside him as they waited for a response.

“Let me see your hand,” Adam said, determined to finish up his work. The stranger pulled back with a shock at the touch of Adam’s fingers, but Adam was quick enough to grab his hand and hold it steady. Not before Adam’s white t-shirt got smudged with blood, though.

Strangely enough, it looked like this guy had been someone else’s patient recently. Adam peeked curiously at the edge of a squarish adhesive bandage on the inside of the stranger’s wrist.

“Watch it, fortune teller,” the guy glared in sharp warning, the threat somehow still potent despite a rapidly swelling eye and lip. He fussed with the sleeve of his sweatshirt, hiding his wrist.

Adam told himself to mind his own damn business, but it was easier said than done. He wondered if there’d be a matching bandage on the other wrist.

He didn’t have time to process it, though. The cell phone beside them buzzed, clattering rapidly against the pavement. Adam scanned the text message on the screen:

**_who r u and what have u done with ronan!!!_ **

Adam worked with a cotton ball and rubbing alcohol, staring at the phone again as it lit up insistently.

“What’s a _ronan_?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know.”

Adam ignored his patient’s smirk, as the phone was now showing an incoming call with Noah’s name.

“Are you gonna get that?” Adam raised an eyebrow.

“I’m bleeding too much.”

“God,” Adam sighed and reached for the phone. “Hello?”

“Hi! I’m Noah. Who’s this?”

“Um. My name’s Adam.”

“So, okay, you’re with Ronan, right? I can come get him but it’ll be, like … A little while till I can get there? Where is he? Is he okay? Ronan didn’t get arrested or anything, did he?”

“Oh! _You’re_ Ronan,” Adam pointed at his patient, who had the nerve to roll his eyes. Adam turned his attention back to the phone, which he’d tucked between his shoulder and ear while he applied another small, white bandage. “He’s fine. Too drunk to drive, though.”

“Yeah. Okay. Cool. I’ll pick him up later. Where are you guys?”

“Cabeswater. The diner. Although, you know what, the diner’s closing up now, so … we’ll go over to the coffee shop across the street. Main Street.”

“Sweet. See ya.”

“We’re going where?” the stranger -- _Ronan_ \-- raised an eyebrow.

“Across the street. My friend’s trying to close up. Also you need coffee. You drink coffee, right?”

Ronan shrugged; his expression had shifted back to something like wariness.

“They’re open late,” Adam continued, snapping the first aid kit shut. “I’ll show you where it is. So your friend can find you.”

“What’s it to you,” Ronan asked, and it was the most sober he’d sounded so far. “You racking up some community service points?”

“I just … I guess I’d feel bad just leaving you here.”

Adam stood, brushing off his jeans -- they were the worn-out pair he reserved for mechanic work, so he hadn’t been too concerned about wrecking them on the pavement. His t-shirt looked mostly okay, too, except for a couple of stray blood stains. Nothing he couldn’t still wear under his coveralls.

He stopped examining the stains when he felt Ronan’s heavy, silent gaze on him.

“Let’s go,” he tucked the first aid kit under his left arm and reached out to Ronan with his right.

Ronan stared up at Adam’s hand, then at his face, back and forth several times. He looked on the verge of telling Adam to fuck off. But then he let Adam help him to his feet. He was heavy, and a little taller than Adam, once they were standing toe to toe, way too close. Adam nearly stumbled, but he held his ground.

Adam couldn’t seem to let go right away. He was staring too, now, but this guy, Ronan ... he had a certain _presence_ that was difficult to identify. It was disarmingly strong and magnetic.

Calla had tried a couple of times to teach Adam about auras, their colors and meanings and how to sense them. Adam had privately maintained that the very idea was bullshit. But this guy had some kind of energy, a raw and alarming electricity. Maybe Adam was finally learning something magical from his adopted Fox Way family.

Adam didn’t know how long he’d stood there in silence, completely lost in the prolonged eye contact.

“You gonna show me this place, or what,” Ronan said, quiet and rough.

“Yeah,” Adam breathed, dropping Ronan’s fingers again. “Yeah, I -- I just need to put this back. Give me a second, okay? Stay right there. Don’t sit back down.”

Ronan shrugged, gruffly petulant. Adam hurried back to the diner’s service door and rang the bell.

“Thanks,” Blue nodded as Adam handed her the metal box. “You get him patched up?”

“Mm-hmm. Can I come get some ice? Are you the only one here?”

“Yep. Help yourself. I don’t want _that_ back,” Blue crinkled her nose at the towel Adam had borrowed. “Gross.”

Adam fashioned an ice pack from some industrial restaurant-grade plastic wrap and a scoop of ice cubes from the top of the soda machine. For a moment, before he pushed open the alley door, he thought for sure Ronan would have disappeared, off to find trouble somewhere else. But he was still standing there, kicking the toe of his boot against the curb, his dark jeans bunched up at the ankles, his face half obscured by the shadows and the raised hood of his sweatshirt.

_What are you doing, Adam?_

“Here, I think this’ll help,” Adam said as he approached, placing his makeshift ice pack into the boy’s hand and guiding it toward his ribcage. Ronan hissed a little, but he accepted the ice after a moment, keeping his arm hugged around his stomach.

“Thanks.”

“Come on, it’s this way,” Adam nodded his head in the direction of Main Street, and took a couple of backward steps until he could be sure Ronan was following him.

Most of the storefronts on Main Street were already dark, or framed with security lights, their signs flipped over to _Closed - Please Come Again._ Adam snuck looks over at Ronan as they waited for the light. He felt oddly sure this was not the first time Ronan had hidden a black eye behind the folds of a hooded shirt. Ronan was walking quickly enough despite what would surely be nasty bruising along his ribcage tomorrow.

He didn’t seem all that affected by the alcohol, really, until they sat down at a little round table by the front window of the coffee shop. Then Ronan suddenly deflated, resting his cheek on his folded arm on the table, and Adam wondered if it’d taken all of Ronan’s concentration just to walk over there.

“I’ll be right back,” Adam pinched at Ronan’s hood, lifting it up to peek inside at Ronan’s sleepy eyes and low, thick lashes. Ronan was definitely not going anywhere fast. Adam pushed his chair back to head to the counter, but Ronan caught him with a steel grip on Adam’s wrist.

“Wait,” Ronan growled, then mumbled something as he shifted around awkwardly and retrieved his wallet. He shoved some cash indiscriminately into Adam’s hand and then dropped his head down again, closing his eyes.

Adam was now carrying enough to buy coffee for his entire adopted family’s household, but he kept it to two medium coffees and the biggest croissant they had to offer. He then added a dollar of his own to Ronan’s change, to make up for his coffee.

He had not intended to sit here and drink coffee. He had intended to deposit this drunken weirdo at the coffee shop and move on with his life.

“Keep it,” Ronan mumbled as he heard Adam setting bills and coins down on the table.

“I’m not your waiter,” Adam said, pausing to let a crackle of temper pass through him. “I don’t work for tips.”

“Don’t you, though?” Ronan blinked up at him, slowly lifting his head. “Shit, was I supposed to tip you when you did that card thing?”

“People don’t generally tip us unless they feel like it was a positive or worthwhile experience.”

Ronan looked like he wanted to smirk again, but instead he touched the tip of his tongue to the crack on his lip and winced.

Adam looked from Ronan to the handful of other customers to the cash register to the door. He wasn’t sure he wanted to commit himself to this … _situation_ , but he did not see any immediate harm in staying a while, at least long enough to drink his coffee. It smelled like real coffee, not the tar that came out of the ancient coffee maker at the shop.

Adam carried his coffee to the cart by the door and added a little cream and sugar. He’d already spent the money, so he was going to enjoy this small luxury, at least. He took his time stirring and grabbing a napkin and then went back to take a seat opposite Ronan, who was watching him levelly, more alert than Adam would’ve thought him capable at that moment.

“Thought you’d decided to leave,” Ronan said, toying with the coins Adam had left him.

“Well. I should probably get home soon, but. This is too full to carry without spilling,” Adam sipped carefully at his coffee.

“What is this,” Ronan poked dubiously at the croissant on a foam plate.

“It’s food. You should have something in your stomach.”

Ronan closed his eyes again. “Not hungry.”

“I know, but you should eat something anyway. How long’s it going to take for your friend to get here? Noah?”

“Dunno,” Ronan shrugged unevenly, still hugging ice to his ribs with one hand. “An hour, maybe. He can’t drive for shit.”

“An hour’s drive one way?” Adam broke off a corner of the croissant and chewed it thoughtfully. No use wasting a perfectly good pastry. “You’re not from here.”

Ronan blinked at him, his gaze reverting to defensiveness, and shook his head once.

“Tell me you’re not from Henrietta.”

“I’m not gonna lie to you,” Ronan scowled.

“Oh my God. Of course. Of course you are.”

“What’s your problem about it?”

“About Henrietta?” Adam stared. “The kingdom that’s run my village and my family into the ground for generations just so they can claim this land and the Forest on illegitimate grounds? Do you not think I’d have a problem with--”

“I don’t mean _that_ . I get that. Whatever. It’s not like I came up with the idea of oppressing the shit out of the Borderlands. I mean me, what’s your problem with _me_ being from -- I dunno, never mind.”

“That’s the thing with y’all,” Adam tore off another flaky strip of pastry for himself. “You always say that. _Oh, it wasn’t my idea to colonize your village, I just live here_. That kind of apathy is exactly what lets the Crown walk all over us.”

“You don’t know me. I’m not fucking _apathetic_ ,” Ronan stole the croissant away and pulled it toward him, possessive and petty. Adam couldn’t help a surprised little burst of breathy laughter.

“Okay, well. Maybe you’re not. What are you doing in Cabeswater, anyway? Every weekend? Can’t find enough cheap liquor or bar fights or back alley gambling to entertain you back in the royal city?”

Ronan was silent for a long moment, considering.

“I don’t gamble,” he said, with a shaky little smirk.

“Mm-hmm. You can’t find any trouble to get into back--”

Adam lost his train of thought as the coffee shop door opened with a loud jingle and one of Henrietta’s armed Royal Guard shoved his way inside, looking around at the patrons and the employees.

“Oh, great,” Adam muttered. “It’s not even curfew yet. God, I hate them.”

Ronan was silent again. Adam noticed him retreating further behind the hood of his sweatshirt, shrinking away and shifting his gaze like he wanted to be anywhere else.

“Do you have a warrant out or something?” Adam whispered.

“What? No.”

“Don’t want to run into any Royal Guard, though, do you?”

“Not especially,” Ronan said through clenched teeth, his eyes trained on the soldier who was now questioning the cashier in a self-important way about their business flow that evening.

“Okay, look,” Adam grabbed Ronan’s sleeve and tugged it to get his attention. “Neither do I. At all. There’s a back door down the hall, by the bathrooms. Follow me and don’t make any noise. Focus, all right? Grab your coffee and act sober.”

Ronan glanced up at the Royal Guardsman a couple more times, then seemed to arrive at a decision. He stood slowly and silently, thank the Forest, without tripping over his own feet or stumbling on a chair. Adam led him out at a calm, natural pace, hoping they would not draw attention. He could feel his pulse in his ears. Adam pushed open the metal Exit door in back, though, and then they were free again, escaping into the humid night air.

“Your friend will have to come this way. It’s a one-way street,” Adam said once he could catch his breath a bit. “We’ll go up to the park and catch him up there.”

“How long until midnight,” Ronan asked, looking up Main Street where Adam had nodded. “Till curfew?”

“A little over an hour. It should be enough time.”

“Enough time for you to get home, though?”

“I’ll be fine,” Adam said, keeping an eye on the Guardsman through the long coffee shop window. “Come on.”

Ronan was carrying his coffee in one hand and his ice pack in the other, forgotten and dangling from his fingers. Adam took a hold of Ronan’s forearm, careful to avoid his wrist, and led him up the sidewalk a few blocks to a park that was mostly deserted. There were a few younger kids gathered around the swings, smoking and talking quietly. Adam made his way to the bus stop overlooking Main Street and sat down on the bench, leaving room for Ronan to sit beside him.

Ronan sank shakily onto the warm metal and gulped down maybe half of his coffee. The hood of his sweatshirt fell away from his face, and Adam could see how badly Ronan’s eye was starting to swell.

“Here,” Adam stole the ice pack away -- it wasn’t quite as solid, now, but still cold -- and applied it to Ronan’s temple.

“I got it,” Ronan said, shooing Adam away and holding the ice pack himself. “What’s your thing with the Guard, man? Back there? You said you didn’t wanna run into them either.”

“Oh, yeah, it’s … a little complicated,” Adam fidgeted with his own coffee cup. His stomach growled again, and he mourned the croissant they’d had to abandon. “My foster moms are on the Cabeswater Council, so. They don’t like me interacting.”

“Your … foster … moms.”

“It’s a long story.”

“So?” Ronan looked around them and then back at Adam, expectant.

“It’s a long story that I don’t usually tell complete strangers,” Adam clarified. “No matter how hot they are.”

Ronan raised an eyebrow and took the ice pack from his face, as if to question or disprove Adam’s taste.

“Oh, whatever, you know what I mean,” Adam turned to face the street, hoping he wasn’t blushing. He drank some of his coffee and stared out at the road.

“I heard what your friend said about me,” Ronan said, quiet and coy, moving the ice back to his ribcage.

“What?”

“Your friend. The waitress.”

“Oh. God,” Adam groaned. “Sorry, she’s -- she likes messing with me. She thinks I work too much and I’m going to regret having zero social life and … and it’s not like she’s one to talk. Anyway, it was just a joke. Don’t get mad. She’s teasing _me_ , okay, she’s not trying to imply anything about _you_ , that you’re, like …”

“Gay?” Ronan supplied, his eyebrow up again. “You can say it.”

“I _told_ her I didn’t know anything about you,” Adam said in a bit of a rush. He’d quickly gotten in over his head here, with the flirting, and he wanted to request a do-over. Orla would be rolling her eyes at him right now.

“Honestly,” Ronan faced forward again, testing the edge of his lip with a fingertip, “I can’t believe you tried to pass yourself off as a damn psychic.”

“I can read tarot,” Adam said, bristling. “Your reading wasn’t wrong and you know that.”

“You thought Noah was my boyfriend.”

“I was only trying to figure out if you’d have a _boyfriend_ in the first place. Okay? I’m sorry if I offended you.”

“The only thing that offended me is how dumb it was. What were you gonna do with that information? Find some way to scam me out of another twenty bucks? Couples’ psychic readings?”

“I wasn’t trying to rip you off, oh my God! I was trying to find out if you were already dating someone! Don’t you know when you’re being flirted with?”

Ronan’s eyes flicked upward in irritation, but Adam caught a hint of a blush playing at his throat like a patch of sunburn. It was purple in the glow of the streetlight above them.

A layer of silence spread heavy and crackling between them. The only sound was a breeze rattling through the trees.

Adam wrapped his hands around his coffee cup and focused on bringing himself back to reality. This guy was a total stranger cruising around Cabeswater for trouble, on purpose. Adam did not have the time or energy to welcome any new demons into his life.

Ronan drained the last of his coffee and pitched the cup toward the metal trash bin beside them. It bounced off the edge and rolled around on the dirt. Ronan made no movement to pick it up again.

“Why’d you steal my whiskey,” Ronan sighed, dropping his head back against the top of the bench and closing his eyes.

“You were bad enough off as it was.”

“Yeah, but ... I’m starting to be able to think my own fucking thoughts again.”

“That’s a thing called not being wasted. You should try it more often.”

“You should try not being a sanctimonious buzzkill.”

Adam felt a burst of exasperated laughter escape him. He’d finished his own coffee and he stood up to throw it away, and to retrieve Ronan’s cup as well.

He stood there for a while, gazing down Main Street, the night saturated with a strange suspension of time, a surrealness that he couldn’t quite grasp. Like this was all a murky dream he’d shed in the morning. The air was heavy and about to burst. Adam was sure he’d just felt a drop of rain tapping him gently on the shoulder.

“What’s the deal with you being some kind of first aid expert,” Ronan asked, his voice startling Adam out of his daze. Adam had halfway suspected Ronan was sleeping.

“It’s a, uh … long story,” Adam said, taking shelter again beside Ronan.

“Same long story as before?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re still not going to tell me.”

“You don’t want to hear it,” Adam gazed upward, at the clear plastic top of the bus stop. “Trust me.”

The rain began to drum faintly against the narrow roof over their heads.

“If only I had your psychic talents,” Ronan said, sitting up straighter. It was only then that Adam realized he’d planted himself a lot closer, this time. “I could divine it myself.”

“Okay, look. Do you want your twenty bucks back? Is that why you can’t stop complaining about it? Because I will personally reimburse you if you seriously feel that unsatisfied with your purchase--”

“Did they teach you to flirt with all your customers?”

Adam caught himself rearing back in an automatic denial of this. Then he reconsidered.

“You know what, uh,” he rubbed at the back of his neck. “Yes. Kind of. Or at least, Orla tried to teach me. But I’m not exactly making her proud. It’s not like I’m going to make a career out of this. You know?”

“What are you gonna make a career out of, then? Your true calling is … fixing cars or something?”

“Oh, God. You can tell?” Adam pressed his lips together, pulling his t-shirt away from him and trying to determine how strongly it smelled of the garage. “I mean, no, that’s just a job, I … sorry. It was a long shift.”

“How many just-a-jobs do you even have?”

“I mean … three, really, not counting the Saturday market. I’m supposed to be at the warehouse in … seven hours,” Adam said, checking his watch. “Which is why I should probably go.”

Ronan looked over at him for a long moment, then back out at the street in front of them. The rain wasn’t letting up.

“No one’s stopping you,” Ronan said, closing his eyes.

Adam sat folded up on the bench, his mind spinning with indecision and obligation. He’d gone straight through exhaustion into a second wind, and he wasn’t sure he’d be able to sleep even if he did go home. And he did have to work early the next morning. But when he thought about how simple it would be to stand up and leave, to wish the handsome stranger good luck and move on, something deep inside him rebelled. His fingers were clenching tighter to the metal beneath him.

He wanted to stay. He wanted to have this moment, any memorable moment like his more social classmates all seemed to have, instead of zoning out for hours while stacking cases of cat food at work.

He wanted something to light him up with energy, like the kind Ronan seemed to emanate. Adam could still sense it, a mysterious thrill whispering to him from below the surface.

“I think I’m the one,” Adam said quietly, barely aloud. “Stopping me.”

Ronan’s eyes flickered open, and he turned just his head to look over at Adam, his gaze probing and suspicious.

“You sure it’s not the rain?”

Adam considered this. He shook his head.

“I didn’t start that fight, you know,” Ronan offered, after a while.

“No? Who did?”

“Some drunk Henriettan shitbags.”

“Typical,” Adam found himself smiling a little. He must have been so overtired that he was losing his own common sense.

“You weren’t supposed to see me like this,” Ronan sighed, testing his swollen eye with the tip of his middle finger.

“What do you mean? How was I supposed to see you?”

“I dunno. Just not … around the bars, or, like … Didn’t think I’d run into you at night.”

“I think technically I’m the one who ran into you. Tripped over you, remember? Anyway, it’s a small town. You should probably know that, if you’re gonna be here every weekend causing trouble.”

“I didn’t cause it!”

“This time.”

Ronan shrugged lazily and slumped further back against the bench, gazing up at the top of their plastic shelter.

“Why don’t I ever see your friend with you? Noah?” Adam shifted around sideways, so he could see Ronan a little better.

“What, you mean … at the market? He’s been around a few times. He likes getting those fucking henna tattoos. Takes a while. Leaves me too much time to kill.”

“Do y’all go to the same school, or something?”

“He’s 23.”

“That … blonde guy? You were with?”

“Yeah,” Ronan looked precariously close to laughing, but instead ran his tongue over his teeth.

“Wait, are you - how old are _you_ , then?”

“You gonna turn me in for my fake ID or something?”

“You are really defensive, you know that? Why can’t I just be curious.”

“I’m eighteen. Okay? Happy?”

“Oh. Me too,” Adam relaxed, letting out a breath without realizing it. “I mean, for another week and a half. Did you just graduate, too? In Henrietta?”

The corners of Ronan’s mouth turned down, and then he winced slightly. It looked like he wasn’t able to scowl quite as much because of his split lip.

“Dropped out,” Ronan said, more in an exhale than in separate words.

“Oh.”

“ _Oh_ ,” Ronan echoed; Adam couldn’t tell if his expression or his accent were being mocked. Maybe both.

“So, what, you work instead?”

“Yes,” Ronan said, his gaze jumping around restlessly. “Not three and a half jobs or whatever, though.”

“I have to save as much as I can right now,” Adam glanced down at his watch. Twenty minutes till curfew. “Scholarship doesn’t pay for everything.”

“Scholarship to where? Somewhere halfway across the world, right?”

“Royal College of Henrietta.”

“Oh.”

“ _Oh_ ,” Adam grinned. He wasn’t one to brag, exactly, but he still enjoyed every opportunity to say it out loud, if someone asked. _Royal College of Henrietta_.

“Why would you go straight into the middle of a place you hate? Run by a crown you want to overthrow?”

Adam couldn’t help looking around to see if anyone was close enough to hear this. Typical Henriettan carelessness.

“I didn’t say I was plotting a revolution,” he grumbled.

There was no one else to witness this treasonous talk. 

He wondered if the rain would dampen their conversation, anyway. He knew he was having a hard time hearing Ronan, now that the rain was beating steadily against the roof of the bus stop. He had to tilt his head slightly, so his hearing ear had a better chance at catching the sound.

“It’s one of the best universities in the world,” Adam shifted a little closer, so he wouldn’t have to raise his voice. “I know it’s run by the crown, technically. But the crown takes from us all the time. So I’ll take a degree for myself. And I’ll use it to help free my family. The Tir’e'lentes were here a long time before the Ganseys ever put walls around us and claimed the whole Forest.”

“Those were different Ganseys,” Ronan’s eyes flashed. “Like seven generations different. And half the Forest is _in_ Henrietta. You know that.”

“Half. Not all. And the Forest doesn’t care where we declare our borders, by the way. No one owns it. Definitely not King Richard. No matter how many Royal Guard assholes he sends here to try and convince us.”

Ronan’s eyes dropped down to his lap at this, and he examined his wounded knuckles, closing his hand into a fist and then opening it again, several times. Adam didn’t think he’d said too much, there; it was true, after all, and Ronan was clearly not a Royal Guard fan, either.

Ronan shifted around uncomfortably; it took Adam a minute to realize Ronan was going for his phone, which had lit up with Noah’s name again.

“Here, tell him where we are,” Ronan shoved the phone into Adam’s hands clumsily, and it was only then that Adam remembered how drunk Ronan had been before, or likely still was.

“Hello,” Adam half sighed as he answered Ronan’s phone.

“Oh, hey, Ronan’s friend! I’m turning down Main Street now but I can’t remember how far the diner is.”

“We’re at the park now, actually. It’s on the right, before you get there. Look for the bus stop. It’s, uh … silver and blue.”

“Okay, thanks! Be right there. Is he passed out or puking or anything?”

“Nope,” Adam replied. Ronan seemed to sense that the conversation had focused on him; he looked at Adam sideways, suspicious, beneath half-shut eyelids.

“Cool, cool. See you soon!”

“What kind of car does he drive,” Adam started to slide Ronan’s phone back into Ronan’s hip pocket; those jeans were tight, though. Ronan had to lean all the way over to his left to put it away completely. Adam’s fingers twitched.

“Mustang. Red one.”

Adam craned his neck to look down Main Street. It was partly a relief to know he’d be done with his stranger soon.

Partly.

The appearance of a red car moving slowly toward them, though, gave Adam a strong twinge of loneliness. It was rare for him to be able to talk to someone like this, so easily and effortlessly. Let alone someone whose sharp jawline and dark eyelashes made Adam’s heart stumble over itself.

Ronan had spotted his friend’s car, too. He pushed himself to his feet with some visible effort and closed his eyes for a moment. Adam braced himself to try and catch him, even though he knew it’d probably be impossible.

Ronan was still clutching the mostly-melted ice pack, and it was dripping down his long fingers. Adam stole it away and walked it over to the trash can. The rain had steadied into a drizzle, softly blanketing the park behind them.

Noah’s Mustang pulled up clumsily to the curb, his hazards blinking a greeting. Adam felt the night slipping through his fingers as he saw Ronan take a shaky step forward, pulling his hood up over his head.

“Ronan,” he tried the name out loud. It felt like taking a liberty.

Ronan’s eyes snapped back to him, like lightning.

“Remember to, um …” Adam reached out to grab at Ronan’s sweatshirt sleeve; he couldn’t seem to staunch the flow of sudden desperation. The moment was already over. “Try to use more ice. When you get home.”

“I’ll be fine, fortune teller,” Ronan smirked at him over his shoulder, then slid his hand to Adam’s and gave his fingers a squeeze, in a move that could almost be explained away as a handshake, if needed.

Adam felt that _thing_ again. That magnetic energy.

“Okay,” Adam let go of him; the rain was covering them both. “Watch out when you go through the checkpoint. They won’t care about Henriettans reentering so much as they would with me, but. You know. They can sniff out a fake ID.”

“I’ve got a real one, too. Not my first time out past the wall.”

Adam nodded, then went to the car and opened the passenger door, waving at Ronan’s friend and waiting for Ronan to slump down into the seat.

“Hi, Ronan’s friend! Thank you!”

The last thing Adam heard before shoving the car door closed was Ronan snapping at Noah: “His name is _Adam_.”

It was nearly midnight, so Adam took a winding, indirect, shadowy route back to 300 Fox Way, taking care to avoid the signs of Royal Guard patrols. It wasn’t quite enough of an immediate distraction to keep him from dwelling rather obsessively on Ronan, about what had really drawn him into a fight, about the bandages on his wrists, about the clear signs of someone trying, or at least badly wanting, to _escape_. Whether Ronan sought escape from a person or situation or both, Adam couldn’t yet hazard a guess.

But some deep, mutinous part of him wanted to find out.

* * *

Adam spent a comparatively uneventful week working as many hours as he could physically squeeze into the days, wearing and washing the same few stained and disintegrating articles of clothing, sleeping furtively and restlessly, eating only when his stomach got embarrassingly noisy, plodding dutifully through the required freshman reading for college.

As the days blended and swirled closer to Saturday, he knew he was secretly looking forward to spotting Ronan again, perhaps stealing glances at Adam as he wandered in search of more trouble.

For once, though, there was no sign of Ronan all day. Adam absently filled vials and pouches, shadowed Jimi as she read palms and auras, ran back to the house for more change. But no sign of the strange boy who was occupying way too much of Adam’s conscious thoughts lately.

“Adam,” Jimi welcomed him back to the market stall after his second run for more fives and ones. It was almost time to close up shop for the weekend. “Someone left this for you.”

Inside the mysterious black shopping bag she handed him was a new, plain white t-shirt, tags still on from some upscale Henriettan boutique Adam had seen in magazines. Adam laughed as he ran the soft fabric through his fingers. He appreciated the sentiment, but he was definitely not wearing this one to the garage.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Forgot to mention before -- the Chapter 1 title is Shapes, which is a Fjord song. This chapter is named for a song by VÉRITÉ.
> 
> I'm going on vacation tomorrow! Will be offline for a while. Wanted to post one more chapter for y'all before I had to go. Thanks so much for your encouragement <3


	3. I Know A Place

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> chapter cw: references to past child abuse and suicidal ideation

“Lynch. Where are you going? It’s seven-thirty in the morning.”

Ronan looked up in surprise from the front hallway, spinning his keys around his index finger. Prince Richard Campbell Gansey III himself was planted up on the kitchen counter, picking through a box of granola, probably digging for dried apricots. His glasses were slightly crooked, his hair tufted outrageously over his left ear. He was wearing a plush terry-cloth bathrobe in the royal gold and ugly plaid slippers with bright white plastic soles.

He still managed to look like an off-duty superhero, somehow.

“I’m bored. No training today,” Ronan flipped his keys again with an irritable jangle. “Wanna go for a drive?”

“Alas,” Gansey said. “My dance card is full. Freshman orientation in a few hours.”

“They’re making _you_ do orientation?”

“Well. They’ve arranged for a private session,” Gansey looked rueful, setting the granola box aside. “Security concerns. Apparently.”

“I still can’t believe they’re letting you go to university like a normal human person.”

“Don’t say it out loud too many times,” Gansey tilted his head, pressing the frames of his glasses further up his nose with a nudge of his shoulder. “Wouldn’t want to jinx it. Do you want me to wake up Noah? Maybe he could go with you?”

“I’ll be all right,” Ronan came closer to raid the granola box for a few candied almonds. “I promised you.”

“I know you did. Hey. Noah says you … you met someone. When you were out beyond the wall. Is that true?”

“...I’ve met plenty of people out beyond the wall.”

“Ronan. You know what I mean.”

“I don’t know if it’s, like … anything, yet,” Ronan transferred his car keys from one hand to the other, then back again. “It’s nothing. It’s … whatever, look, Czerny talks too much. I’ll be back later.”

“Take your phone.”

Ronan sighed as he slid his cell phone out of his pocket, shook it at Gansey, then tucked it away again and headed for the parking lot.

His father’s car was his stolen suit of armor, and he slid into it with some relief.

He drove through palace security out into the city, filled up the gas tank, bought a plastic jug of orange juice and drank half of it when he got out on the freeway and hung out in fifth gear for a while.

He might’ve taken a roundabout route, but he knew exactly where he was going to end up. It was his first Saturday off all month, and there was a certain psychic-doctor-revolutionary-scholarship student he wanted to check on.

If he’d been more possessed of his senses, or perhaps more inclined to do things in even a halfway normal way, he’d have asked Adam for his phone number. As it was, he found himself reduced to lurking in street markets and cafes in the Borderlands, simultaneously hopeful and terrified about running into Adam somewhere.

He didn’t know what he’d say even if he had gotten Adam’s number. The very idea of _calling_ him made Ronan feel like he was breaking into hives. But at least he might have some idea if Adam was ever going to get any downtime from his numerous and varied part-time jobs.

Ronan walked through the market and stopped to feign interest in a spinning rack of sunglasses that just happened to be across from the fortune-telling tent. He could see Adam’s boss out front as usual, and the waitress friend with the weird hair, but no sign of Adam himself.

He could kill some time at that coffee shop, maybe. Come back in an hour or so.

“I liked the black ones better.”

Ronan was thankful for the mirrored sunglasses he was already wearing, because they had to be hiding the way his eyes had just popped open wide at Adam’s unexpected voice right behind him.

“You … don’t think I could pull these off?” Ronan said, trying to keep his breath even. He was, of course, holding a bright pink plastic pair of sunglasses that he’d never actually meant to pick up.

“I mean, maybe,” Adam came closer, stealing the fuschia frames and examining them seriously. “Depends how obnoxious you want to go.”

“What are you doing roaming so far away from your occult mistresses,” Ronan nodded toward the neon sign crowning the fortune-telling tent across the way.

“They let me out once in a while, you know. You were right. I’m not very good at it. I don’t really make them any money,” Adam put the plastic shades back onto their metal bracket and tilted his head at Ronan in open curiosity. “I don’t know if you noticed this, but you’re actually, like … already wearing sunglasses.”

“Oh, wow, you _are_ smart. No wonder they can’t wait to get their hands on you at the Royal College of Henrietta.”

Adam grinned back at him, radiant and amused, and Ronan forgot how to swallow.

“Look, I know you’re busy doing … whatever it is you are doing here,” Adam said, glancing around at their surroundings. “But I’ve got an hour’s break, and I need food. You eaten yet?”

Ronan shrugged; he wasn’t hungry, but he also wasn’t exactly sure if he was being asked out. He definitely wasn’t going to get all particular about it.

“Your waitress friend told me I’m banned from the diner,” Ronan pointed out. “Don’t really want her to stab me.”

“Oh, right. I forgot. Okay, fine; where else are you banned from?”

“You want them listed alphabetically? Or by geographical region?”

Adam rolled his eyes and turned away; there was nothing for Ronan to do but follow him through the market.

They ended up buying coffee and bagels from one of the local vendors, a redheaded girl who clearly knew Adam already and stared Ronan up and down. Adam gave her a rosy, effortless smile as he accepted his bagel spread thick with peanut butter, in a way the girl had done without asking, and Ronan wondered if Adam was actually regarding him as some kind of wingman here.

“Who the fuck puts peanut butter on a bagel,” he grumbled as they perched on a low brick wall, there being no real seating options at the street market.

“It’s cheap protein,” Adam’s mouth stretched thin, briefly. “What are you doing in Cabeswater today?”

Ronan set his bagel down on its tiny paper plate and considered how to answer without sounding like a creep.

“This,” he said with a shrug. He took off his sunglasses and hooked them into the front of his shirt so he could see Adam better -- they were on the shady side of the street.

“No bloodshed or blackouts or car chases or anything?”

“The day is young,” Ronan smirked.

“You look good,” Adam said.

The surface of Ronan’s skin erupted into hot little needles, over his chest and arms. He opened his mouth to say something, some sarcastic retort, but his mind was blank.

“Your eye’s all healed again,” Adam clarified, and Ronan touched his own eyebrow self-consciously before he realized he was doing it. He’d forgotten the state he’d been in when he’d last seen Adam.

“You missed when it was yellow and purple at the same time.”

“You were so drunk.”

“Really wasn’t,” Ronan shrugged. “Relatively speaking.”

“Well. I’m glad you decided to come by today. It’s my last Saturday market for the summer, so. Probably wouldn’t have run into you again.”

Ronan occupied himself with eating his breakfast, because this last bit from Adam was overfull of news to consider. There were too many reactions to outwardly suppress. Ronan wasn’t used to having emotional reactions at all, lately. That part of him was blunted and unreliable.

_You’re glad?_ The words swirled through the back of his throat.

“I was supposed to have freshman orientation this weekend,” Adam said, picking at the seam of his coffee cup. “But they postponed it because they’re giving a special private session to the prince. God. I didn’t realize his royal highness was gonna be in the same graduating class as me.”

“He’s not gonna graduate with you,” Ronan tucked his boot up under his knee. “It’ll take him twice as long. Security and all that shit. And everyone knows he doesn’t want to be a lawyer like so very many Ganseys before him.”

“I didn’t know that,” Adam’s eyebrow twitched in curiosity; Ronan swore inwardly at himself to shut the fuck up about Gansey. “I don’t really know anything about him, except for that thing with the bees, you know? When he was little? Almost died?”

“Hornets,” Ronan said, and then he stuffed half a sesame bagel into his mouth. He didn’t trust his voice enough to elaborate any further, and anything else about Gansey or the palace or the guard or security or whatever would require Ronan to lie.

“He still gets to go to RCH without even applying,” Adam scoffed, wiping his fingers neatly with a paper napkin. “Must be nice.”

Their conversation gave way to a strangely companionable silence. Ronan honestly didn’t know what he thought he was doing, here; he’d been floating along so numb and untethered, and the second he’d seen some spark of potential, some omen that his emotions might still be kicking, he’d jumped in at full speed.

Adam was watching him quite plainly and unabashedly. Ronan got that sense again that Adam could see right through him, every nightmare that had chased Ronan for years. Adam’s eyes were steady and analytical, like Ronan was some kind of equation, and Adam was just on the verge of solving him. He could picture Adam raising his hand in triumph and chalking his solution across a blackboard in front of the class.

“You sure you’re not really psychic?” Ronan asked, feeling a little dizzy from the prolonged eye contact. It was heady and addictive, a strange new drug Ronan’s system had no tolerance for.

“I thought you didn’t believe in that.”

“I don’t.”

“Okay,” Adam laughed, a short burst. “I’m sure, though, yes.”

“People used to say my mom had, like. A sixth sense,” Ronan confessed, then shoved the rest of his bagel into his mouth to prevent any further immediate outbursts.

“Really,” Adam swiped at each of his fingertips in turn, businesslike, with a paper napkin. “And do you believe that?”

“Mm,” Ronan shrugged, considering. “I dunno. Maybe she just gave good advice.”

Adam watched him steadily and carefully, pausing just to get up and throw away their empty paper plates and coming back to perch on the wall again.

“What happened to her,” Adam finally asked, quiet and somber.

“Doctors say she’s perfectly healthy,” Ronan said, glancing around at the growing market crowd. “But she’s in a … uh. A coma. Ever since my dad died.”

Adam nodded, his pale brows scrunched together. “I’m sorry.”

Ronan still didn’t have much use for those particular words, no matter how many times he heard them. He shrugged and gulped down some more coffee.

“So she’s in the hospital?” Adam asked, leaning a little closer.

“Nah, man, we got her a home nurse. I fucking hate hospitals.”

Adam’s gaze turned downward, and Ronan realized the little adhesive bandages on his wrists were now the subject of attention. Adam reached out slowly, and Ronan had plenty of chances to stop him. But he didn’t. Adam lifted Ronan’s hand and turned it over, running a steady, careful, probing fingertip up the inside of Ronan’s wrist. Ronan’s shoulders clenched as he suppressed a little shiver.

“Have you visited a lot of hospitals?” Adam glanced up at him.

“Just the one,” Ronan muttered. And it was true.

“I’ve been in my fair share,” Adam sighed, letting go of Ronan’s forearm. “Not for a while now, but … I hate them, too.”

“Aren’t you gonna work in one someday? All that first aid shit you know how to do? You’re not pre-med?”

“No, I’m not. The first aid thing was sort of … uh. I learned it young. You know how I said I had foster moms?”

Ronan nodded, focusing in on the way Adam’s stance had subtly shifted. He’d been sprawled casually on the brick wall just a minute ago, but now he sat up straighter, his posture clean and rigid. He clasped his fingers loosely together in his lap and studied them.

“I was adopted because my birth parents had to surrender me. There was a -- a whole legal thing when a doctor got suspicious and reported my case. They didn’t believe me that time, at the hospital. When I said I had fallen down again. It was … far-fetched, after all. I’d cracked some things. Bruised some other things.”

Ronan’s lips chafed with dryness, and he realized his mouth had been hanging open. He continued to stare at Adam, waiting for some kind of terrible punchline, a twist in this story that would stop him from feeling like he might throw up.

“They called in the police, and child protective services,” Adam tilted his head from side to side, as if to simply loosen a stiff muscle. “Parental rights were terminated. You know. My best friend, from school, she’s the waitress you met? Her family took me in after that. So. Foster moms.”

There was a long silence. The punchline never arrived. Ronan couldn’t look at Adam anymore without picturing the bruises and broken bones. He looked down at his coffee cup, which he’d forgotten on the brick between them.

“How old,” Ronan spit the words out.

“What?”

“How old were you?”

“Oh. Ten.”

“Fucking _Hell_ ,” Ronan launched himself to his feet, crushing the coffee cup in his fist and hurling it into the trash can. He spun around, wiped his coffee-damp fingers on his jeans, tried to calm down again.

Adam sat there the whole time and was … maybe not calm, exactly, but … but watchful. Quiet and motionless.

_Where were you, God? How could you let this happen?_

Ronan’s brain was always habitually forming the prayer words, despite never receiving answers.

He sat down again, more out of a loss for what to do next than from any kind of desire to be still and not break anything.

“Sorry, I, um. I know it’s a lot to take in, all of a sudden. I forget, sometimes. I’ve lived with it too long now. Kind of had to learn how to separate the telling from the remembering.”

“Don’t -- Christ! Don’t apologize.”

“Okay, well. I don’t know why I decided now was an appropriate time to lay all of that on you, I mean … not usually a thing I get into on a … whatever this is. Breakfast date?”

“What -- uh. Where the hell are these monsters now,” Ronan shook his head to try and process one thing at a time.

“Oh. Who knows. Dead, maybe. You want some of my coffee? Since you destroyed yours?”

Ronan rubbed his palm back and forth over his own bent knee, taking in Adam’s chilly, businesslike demeanor. He marvelled at the strangeness of this boy: Adam seemed to possess a cold, bored indifference toward these devils who’d brought him into this world. Ronan had frequently battled his own emotions when not overmedicated, but Adam … Adam seemed to have found a way to sever them completely, when it suited him.

Ronan still wanted to break something.

“I’m okay,” Adam pressed idly at the upturned tab on his coffee lid. “Really.”

Ronan drew in a long, steadying breath. “What are your foster parents like?”

“Oh, God. They’re a … a lot. It’s a little wild. It’d take me all day to tell you. But they’re good to me, if that’s what you’re trying to ask. We don’t have much -- nobody here does. But they’d do anything for me and I know that. Even when I don’t deserve it.”

“Family’s not supposed to be about _deserve_ ,” Ronan grumbled.

Adam looked up at him in clear surprise and then away again, biting at his thumbnail.

“Hey, man, did you seriously say this was a breakfast date?” Ronan blurted out, wincing a little at how slowly his own gears were turning throughout this conversation. He was rewarded, though, with a slow, guilty-looking grin from Adam. It was remarkable how drastically Adam’s face could shift like that.

“What was I supposed to call it?”

Ronan’s face felt a little too hot. They weren’t even sitting in the sun at all, so he knew he couldn’t be getting sunburned yet. He bounced his foot inside his boot and tried to shake off this sudden antsiness.

He wondered what it would be like to take Adam on a _real_ date. Then he considered running straight back to his car to hide his face behind the tinted glass and drive at full speed until he didn’t recognize anything anymore.

“I should probably get back to work, though,” Adam looked back over his shoulder, in the general direction of the fortune-telling stall. “Wasn’t supposed to disappear for this long.”

Ronan’s stomach lunged and folded. He wasn’t ready to go back, to deal with any part of his own world. At all.

He studied Adam’s appearance in a thorough way, memorizing everything about him. It only then occurred to Ronan that Adam was wearing that same white shirt again, the faintly blood-stained one that Ronan had specifically replaced.

“Why didn’t you get rid of this,” Ronan leaned a little closer, pinching the hem of Adam’s t-shirt between his fingers.

“What?” Adam’s face scrunched up a little as he looked down. “Oh. I wasn’t gonna just throw it away, come on. It’s still serviceable. I’ve got a shift at the garage later, so. My new one’s way too nice to wear to work.”

Ronan ran the pad of his thumb over one of the faded stains, and he could feel one of Adam’s ribs beneath the worn, thin cotton.

“You have to work both jobs today?” Ronan sighed.

“Yeah. What are you doing with the rest of your day?”

“I dunno. Don’t really want to go home.”

Ronan meant Monmouth, really. But he also sort of meant the palace at large, and also the Barns, and maybe just Henrietta in general. He didn’t want to see anyone he knew. He didn’t want to be _seen_ by anyone, either.

He let go of Adam’s shirt, but as he was withdrawing, Adam grabbed his hand and squeezed Ronan’s fingers for a second.

“I know a place,” Adam’s pale, short lashes lifted, until he was looking Ronan in the eye and making Ronan’s pulse stall out and change gears. “If you want to hang out in Cabeswater tonight. It’ll have to be kind of late, though.”

“What about curfew?”

“We have our ways of dealing with that. You’ll just have to promise to keep it a secret.”

“I’m not going to tell anyone,” Ronan’s mouth twisted. He’d taken certain oaths, as a new Royal Guardsman. But he didn’t see where that obligated him to reveal Borderland pubs, or whatever.

“I can trust you, right? Promise me.”

“I promise,” Ronan rolled his eyes, lifting his right hand, palm outward. “Although I don’t know why you _want_ to trust me. You do remember scraping me off a fucking sidewalk recently. Right?”

“Look, don’t tell me what you think is good for me. I make my own decisions,” Adam nudged Ronan’s side with an elbow, then got to his feet. “Meet me at the diner around ten, okay? That’s when Blue gets off work.”

“I could meet you _outside_ it. One hundred yards from the premises, minimum.”

“Oh, right. God, I keep forgetting. Well, be nice to Blue. She’s coming with us.”

Adam’s lips were pressed together as he took a step backwards. But then he smiled again, shaking his head slightly, and turned to disappear back into the market crowd.

Adam had looked like he was questioning himself, maybe. And why wouldn’t he? Ronan sat there a while, working a jagged stone loose from the crack in the brick wall beneath him. 

_I can trust you, right?_

Ronan folded in on himself, holding his forehead in his hands. He wasn’t lying, really. Not technically. But this sin carried the same weight nonetheless. His Henriettan Royal Guard ID was right there in his back pocket.

Why hadn’t he just _said_ it out loud, right from the beginning? He’d had the opportunity to come clean to Adam about it plenty of times before. Now it had turned into a deception, a pile of volcanic ash in the pit of his stomach.

* * *

Ronan’s old Cabeswater haunts were deserted in the daylight as he cruised by them. He was sober enough to realize he was better off for it, and yet the idea of going out later with Adam was causing a certain panic to surge like high tide beneath his skin.

He couldn’t think too much about it. His head was foggy, and his brain hurt. He swallowed three aspirin with the last of his lukewarm orange juice.

For a while he found himself at the old coffee-roasting warehouse back on his side of the wall, where Noah’s band practiced on Saturday afternoons. Noah was smoking on the loading dock, his black-and-white checkered sneakers swinging an inch or two off the dirt beneath him.

“Ronan! What’re you doing out here,” Noah’s smile crinkled around the edges of his mouth. “You finally get yourself one of those magic daywalker rings?”

“Still not out of vampire jokes yet,” Ronan grumbled, crashing onto the wooden planks next to Noah.

“Dude! I’ve got tons.”

Ronan fell back on the dock, stretching out on his back and closing his eyes as he faced the sky. The sun was tucked behind a wall of gray clouds.

“Okay, what’s got you all wigged out,” Noah nudged him. 

“Nothing.”

“Uh-huh. Here, have some of this, it’s too early for you to be sleeping again.”

Ronan squinted and sat up again. Noah was pressing a tall fluorescent soda can into Ronan’s fingers, some kind of energy drink.

“S’disgusting,” Ronan stuck his tongue out after downing half of it. “How do you live on those things?”

“How dare you,” Noah yanked it back and sipped at it, then went back to smoking. “Have you been out past the wall again? Saturday morning, huh? Without me?”

“You were sleeping.”

“You went to see Adam,” Noah suddenly pointed a stubby cigarette at him, covering him with ash.

“Watch it,” Ronan grunted, pushing Noah’s hand out so it was hovering over the ground instead of Ronan’s lap. Noah tapped rapidly at the filter and stared back at Ronan, tilting his head back and forth to read Ronan’s expression.

“You like him, don’t you.”

Ronan squirmed a little and rested his elbows on his knees, staring down at his hands. He half-covered one of his little bandages with the pad of his thumb, assessing the size. He wondered if these scars were going to fade enough soon so they weren’t too gross to expose to anyone. Maybe his watch would cover the ones on the left side.

He knew perfectly well that his silence was enough of an answer for Noah, but there was nothing to be done about it.

Noah drank down most of his neon sugar drink and then dropped the end of his cigarette into the can, making a gross fizzing sound.

“He wants me to come back tonight,” Ronan admitted, reaching over to pick at one of three worn-out sticky paper wristbands dangling from Noah’s arm. There was a green stripey one, and one that was fluorescent pink, and one that advertised a DUI law firm in curly black script. “Why don’t you ever cut these things off.”

“He wants you to come back for what? Like … a date?” Noah wiggled a little, side to side. He made a fist, then slid one of his nightclub wristbands completely off and tried to shoot it at Ronan like a rubber band. “Out beyond the wall, or what?”

“Yeah. What time is your terrible punk band playing tonight?”

“Oh, come on, I’m not third-wheeling it, dude.”

“He’s bringing _his_ friend,” Ronan mumbled, retrieving Noah’s discarded wristband and flattening it experimentally over one his bandages. His scars ran the wrong way for this. Maybe he’d just keep wearing long sleeves for a while.

“So it’s, like. A group thing? Hmm. I don’t think I’m done till midnight, at least? But you’ll be good.”

“I dunno if I’m gonna go.”

“Ronan!”

“He doesn’t know who I am,” Ronan straightened his arms, pressed his palms into the wood at his sides. Pushed himself up and tested his strength. “It’s over when he finds out. And I’m not gonna lie to him. He’s going off to RCH soon anyway. I don’t wanna get all … you know.”

“Attached?” Noah slid off another one of the stupid wristbands; if he could take them off so easy, why the fuck was he always wearing them around? “RCH is a friggin’ lot closer to your home than it is to his.”

“Doesn’t matter, as soon as he finds out I’m an enemy captain.”

Noah turned sideways to study Ronan, his face making that horrible soft pitying expression that made Ronan feel sick.

“Maybe he won’t care. But maybe … Ronan, if he does care, it’s gonna be okay. You’re gonna be okay, I mean.”

“Whatever. I know.”

“Okay, okay, I just - you’ve been doing so much better, lately. I don’t know how much you can take right now.”

“I think I’m about to find out.”

“Ronan…”

“I’ll tell him the truth, and then it won’t matter. Okay? I get enough court-appointed therapy during the week, let’s not do anymore right now.”

“Fine,” Noah sulked briefly, then his eyes lit up again. “Wanna go shoot out some whiskey bottles with this old BB gun I found out back?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Ronan sighed with real relief, and they tramped through the grey, drought-parched grass toward the back of the warehouse.

* * *

There were pairs of Royal Guard out that night, patrolling the Borderlands.

Ronan had never really understood the institutional obsession with potential Boderlander uprisings or acts of terrorism. He’d heard his father go on about it over plenty of dinners at the palace, and usually over half a bottle of whiskey. But in practice, when he’d put on the uniform himself, he hadn’t experienced the kind of pushback or harassment that everyone expected. And when he’d spent time there himself, he’d found nothing but kindness and respect. Although perhaps that was easier when he wore his street clothes and not the royal crest.

The village was dark and still as Ronan walked downtown; he didn’t understand why there needed to be any armed monitoring at all, let alone in constant groups. However, it was his night off, and he didn’t need to spend any more mental energy on it, other than staying well clear of any patrols who might recognize him.

“You made it,” Adam said when Ronan approached, his smile easy and disarming. Adam had put on a brown corduroy jacket over his white t-shirt; the cuffs were badly frayed, and it was worn down in places where the ridges had completely disappeared.

“Hi,” Ronan said, so close now he could see the shadows in the hollows of Adam’s cheeks.

“Find enough to entertain yourself all day?” Adam asked, his eyes alight.

“I didn’t get arrested or anything, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“Well. That’s setting the bar kind of low.”

Ronan shrugged; he couldn’t look away. He wondered if his mysterious non-responses would make Adam think he was exciting and dangerous, and not someone who’d spent three hours using empties for target practice and soaking gummy candy in vodka to watch it bloat up ten times its size.

“My friend, Blue, she’s … oh, there she is,” Adam blinked and dragged his gaze from Ronan’s, looking over his shoulder toward the diner.

“Blue, this is Ronan,” Adam said, resting a palm on the small of Ronan’s back for just a split second.

“We’ve met. Sort of,” Blue raised a dark eyebrow. She was tiny, with random clips all over her hair and her hands planted on her hips, glaring up like she’d fight Ronan if he tried anything stupid. He could respect that.

“Stand down, bro, we’re good,” Ronan told her, and her eyes narrowed, but her posture relaxed.

“Don’t call me that,” she pointed at him; she was already looking down the street, so it was more of an absent afterthought than a threat. “Let’s go.”

Blue struck out without checking to see if they were following her.

“Don’t call her that,” Adam whispered, grinning outrageously, and tugged at Ronan’s sweatshirt sleeve. “Come on.”

Ronan kept up easily, and he stopped to look up at the storefront where Blue had disappeared.

“Barber shop?” Ronan observed aloud, running his hand over his scalp. “You think I need a trim?”

“Maybe a little off the top. Look, come on, just trust me,” Adam held the door open, and Ronan followed him inside.

There was a back room past where the metal chairs and mirrors stood empty. Blue’s dark hair was just visible slipping through the curtain in the doorway. Nobody seemed to have a problem with this; Ronan had been fully expecting someone to yell at her for it. He shrugged and followed Adam through to the back, where they descended a steep, rickety staircase.

Underground. They were underground, in Cabeswater. It was a dirty, poorly lit, tile-floored tunnel with doors here and there, marked with signs or neon or murals. Like a subway, but no trains. Or tracks.

“Jesus,” he blinked, watching Borderlanders wander up and down the hallway, chatting and laughing or just going about their business.

He wondered if it’d technically be considered treason to know about something like this and not report it back to his brother. He speculated about how much fun it was going to be to absolutely not report this in the slightest.

“You swore him to secrecy, right?” Blue’s voice cut through his distracting daydream.

“He promised,” Adam crossed his arms and stared insistently at Ronan.

“I would never _dream_ of telling anyone in Henrietta about this,” Ronan said, perhaps too enthusiastically. “How far does it go?”

“Far enough to be able to escape the royal soldiers who make our lives miserable,” Blue replied; Ronan kept his face carefully indifferent. “And to get Adam out of the library and into an actual party for once.”

“Oh, right, like you’re suddenly so big on the Cabeswater high school party scene,” Adam took a step backward. “You hate these people.”

“So maybe we both need to live a little,” Blue tugged at her strange little bead-covered bag so it sat on her hip. “I at least know their names.”

“Uh-huh. Especially the ones you ask Calla to curse with a toenail fungus?”

“You’re being deliberately selective about your memory here. Also, and more importantly: They deserved it. Let’s go, okay? It’s not too late to try and lead normal teenage lives.”

Blue struck off to her left without looking back again. Adam gave Ronan a private little shrug, and they did as she instructed.

They passed maybe a dozen shop or cafe entrances, some marked just as they were upstairs on the main street. It was a long, straight hallway, but toward the end it narrowed and curved a bit, then meandered for what felt like a tenth of a mile, the plaster walls transitioning into brick and stone. The overhead fluorescent lights gave way to strings of tiny, bluish white bulbs lining the walls. There was no sign at the end to give Ronan any hint of how far they’d traveled, but there was nowhere else to go but up the stairs, shaped with gray and brown slate.

They emerged in a dark, quiet clearing surrounded by tall trees.

They were in the forest. Or, at least, at the edge of it.

Ronan had only ever been on the Henriettan side, where his family farm was. But he’d never seen trees that tall anywhere else. He knew it had to be the Cabeswater forest of legend.

He wondered, briefly, if this had turned out to be a very elaborate dream. Maybe he had passed out back at Noah’s warehouse.

“This is the old part of the passage,” Adam leaned in to explain, as they took a few steps through the leaves and grass. “We’re not sure how old it actually is. The newer part was expanded on about a hundred years ago. The part that goes under Main Street, I mean.”

Ronan glanced back and saw how well the entrance was camouflaged by trees and waist-high weeds and wildflowers.

When he faced forward again, it became obvious where they were headed. There were torches lit on either side of a dirt path through the trees, and more light stretching deeper into the forest. He could hear music playing, likely from a set of aftermarket speakers, and lots of laughter and shrieking.

As they got closer, he could see a modest bonfire burning from within a circle of cement blocks, and a couple of kegs holding court on a picnic table. There were people everywhere, around his own age, holding plastic cups and talking and milling around.

“I came all the way out here and through your mystical ancient forest gateway for … this,” Ronan observed. Blue shrugged and made a face that said _you got something better to do?_ Adam’s expression was more wry, maybe even regretful.

Ronan looked around for whoever had the keg cups, or whatever the … the magical forest Borderlands party equivalent would be. It was only after he’d taken a few steps forward that he realized he was now alone. He looked back and saw Blue and Adam hesitating at the edge of the clearing, looking around in a very clearly agitated way, assessing the shit they’d gotten themselves into. They gazed back at each other uneasily.

“I want to say maybe this was a bad idea,” Blue said quietly as Ronan went back for them. “But I know you’re going to say _I told you so_.”

“It feels a little late to be jumping into the high school social scene _after_ graduation. Actually, you know what? It’s creepy,” Adam shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his jacket. “I don’t want to be that guy.”

“You guys go to a lot of parties, huh,” Ronan folded his arms to stare down both of them in turn.

“Do you have the slightest clue how hard it is to get a full RCH scholarship?” Adam glared back at him.

“Or to deal with other high school students? Socially?” Blue craned her neck to see around Ronan, her gaze flitting around, dismissive and repulsed.

“Did I mention I quit high school,” Ronan blinked at them. “Whatever, look, I’ll get us drinks. Before your, like … collective noxious cloud of social anxiety actually chokes someone.”

“I don’t want a _drink_ drink,” Blue wrinkled her nose.

“Yeah, no,” Adam quickly shook his head.

“You two,” Ronan said, pointing over at Adam and then down at Blue, “brought me to a keg party! And you don’t fucking drink? Mother of Christ. Don’t get lost. I’ll find you something.”

Ronan sought out the most likely candidates: two jock-looking dudes talking the loudest, one with half a sleeve of cups literally tied to his belt. They eyed him suspiciously, but his cash was as good as any Borderlander’s. Ronan tilted his new plastic cup under the keg tap, but he still got about sixty percent head and forty percent watery-ass beer. The smell of it was secretly comforting, though. He wandered the perimeter until he found a cooler full of soda, probably meant for mixing with cheap coconut-flavored rum.

“Here,” he held plastic bottles out for Adam and Blue when he returned to them. They hadn’t strayed much past the entrance to the clearing; Blue was midway through an argument about how Adam would be leaving soon and she’d be stuck there taking community college credit by herself and needed to make other friends. Adam was listening seriously, his mouth a thin, crooked line as he leaned down to hear her better.

“Parrish. What are you doing outside, dude,” someone gave Adam’s arm a little punch; Adam swayed with a quick flash of alarm and irritation. The expression cleared into a more neutral one as Adam turned to greet one of his classmates.

“Your speech was great,” someone else raised a hand for Adam to high-five. He did so, reluctantly. Ronan hid a laugh behind his plastic cup.

“Thanks,” Adam toyed with the cap of his soda bottle. 

“Can’t believe you’re out here, Parrish. Thought you were a robot or something. Like, an android. Need to stay plugged into an outlet at night.”

“Okay, we get it,” Blue sighed.

“Blue! Ellie wants to do a seance tonight. You can help, right?”

“Oh my God. I have told you a thousand times, I’m not--”

“Yeah, yeah, but you know how those, like, uh. Work, right? Come talk to Ellie, she’ll freak that you’re out tonight! Come on.”

Blue was led away for two steps, but then stopped and looked back at Adam.

“I’m fine, go,” Adam said, glancing over at Ronan before nodding to Blue again. Blue narrowed her eyes up at Ronan, but eventually turned and left them, insisting loudly to her classmates that she was not in fact a psychic and when was anyone ever going to remember that.

The beer was terrible. Half-flat and a coppery aftertaste. Ronan gulped it down anyway and kept an eye on where Blue was headed. There were a few oddball kids assembled at the edge of the clearing, sitting on coolers and lawn chairs, wearing a lot of purple and black.

“What speech are they talking about,” Ronan asked Adam, after he saw Blue settled.

“Hmm?” Adam leaned in a little closer; he’d been watching Ronan all that time, not paying attention to the people streaming into the party.

“They said you gave a speech,” Ronan prompted.

“Oh. They kind of … make you do that. When you’re valedictorian.”

“A lot of these people are watching you like they’re hoping you’ll give another one.”

“Please. They’re just confused that they’ve been infiltrated by nerds.”

“Hey. Speak for yourself, asshole.”

There was a small clump of students nearby, one of whom was absolutely shrieking with laughter. Adam glanced irritably in that direction, then clamped Ronan’s free hand in his own and led him swiftly away, toward an empty patch of leaves and grass with a crooked, fallen tree diagonally across it. A wooden crate was turned upside-down in the dirt, a messy deck of playing cards abandoned on its surface.

Adam was way worse at this socializing thing than Ronan had gathered. But that was fine. Preferable, really. There were too many noisy, passionate, enthusiastic conversations happening, and Ronan was deeply allergic to those.

Adam seemed to be indicating that they should sit down on the halfway-rotted tree trunk. Ronan tested the more solid half with the toe of his boot, then straddled it, so Adam would have to sit facing him.

“Quieter over here,” Adam’s expression was a bit calmer and more relieved as he mirrored Ronan’s stance.

“I guess _you_ don’t have to make friends,” Ronan said, looking out over the crowd again. He clocked Blue’s aggressively weird hair peeking out over the back of a lawn chair. He actually saw her crane her neck to look straight back at him, glaring like _he_ was the one to keep an eye on. Ronan gave her a half-hearted scowl.

“What, you mean because I’m leaving?” Adam’s voice snapped him back to his conversation.

“Aren’t you?”

“Twenty-two days,” Adam said, then tipped back his soda bottle. Ronan watched Adam’s throat work, and then forced himself to look at literally anything else. Fire. People. Trees. Cards. Ronan set his beer on the crate nearby and gathered up the abandoned poker cards.

“How long have you wanted to get the fuck out of here,” Ronan asked while he flipped the cards around so they were all facing the same way.

“Ever since I was old enough to see the wall and understand what it was,” Adam said, looking out at the party crowd. “Which I know doesn’t really line up with my goal to help liberate the people here. But, you know. I don’t have to like them to believe in their right to freedom.”

“That’s … You should really put that slogan on your revolution propaganda.”

Adam pursed his lips, but then his expression surrendered into a smirk that lit his eyes up.

“Do you go to parties like this? On your side of the wall?” Adam asked; he was now watching Ronan fiddle with the deck.

“Yeah, sure. Enough.”

“So what are they like? Your Henriettan friends? How come you’re always out here by yourself?”

“I don’t really have Henriettan friends anymore,” Ronan shrugged, trying to do that one-handed deck-cutting thing Noah had tried to teach him. He dropped a quarter of the cards in his lap and swore as he had to collect them again.

“Doesn’t Noah count?” Adam reached down to snag the escaped three of spades and set it atop Ronan’s reassembled deck.

“Yeah, I mean … besides him. Besides my roommates,” Ronan said carefully; he’d had plenty of practice keeping Gansey’s identity quiet. “That’s it nowadays. I’m not saying that so you’ll feel sorry for me.”

“I’m certainly not one to talk,” Adam lifted a palm and looked around them. “My best friend is my grade point average. And, like you said, I’m leaving soon. I guess I need to make some Henriettan friends instead.”

“Right. Well. If I think of anyone, I’ll let you know.”

Adam knocked his knee against Ronan’s and rolled his eyes.

“You were faking, before,” Adam nodded toward the cards in Ronan’s hands. “Pretending it was such a pain in the ass for you to shuffle the tarot cards. You can shuffle just fine.”

“Cards this size, yeah,” Ronan ran his thumb over the corners, then ditched the deck on the crate beside him in favor of his beer.

“I had to learn on these first,” Adam picked them up, cutting the deck and tapping the halves together at an angle. “Why’d you say you don’t have friends anymore? You used to?”

“Dunno if I’d call them that,” Ronan said, swirling what was left of his beer around the bottom of his cup. “Bunch of shitheads. Only thing they were good for was getting me fucked up. Christ knows what I was doing. Didn’t want to be home, or at school, I guess. Didn’t want to be anywhere at all.”

“Is that still true?” Adam asked, inching closer, losing interest in his cards as he watched Ronan’s face so carefully.

“No. I don’t know,” Ronan said. “Not like before.”

“So you’re doing okay?”

“...I don’t know.”

“Mm. Are you always this honest?”

“Yes,” Ronan said, after he’d drained the last of his beer.

“Do you want to, uh. Talk? About it? Maura says sometimes it’s important to name things and respect their darkness.”

“Who’s that? One of your moms? And fuck no. I need a refill.”

Adam shrugged, like he was bored again and this was all the reaction he could manage. But when Ronan climbed up off the fallen tree, Adam reached out, his hand trailing over Ronan’s forearm, floating over Ronan’s wrist, keeping him still.

Adam looked at him in a confusing, loaded way, like he wasn’t even sure why he’d touched Ronan in the first place. Ronan could see Adam’s eyes skipping up over Ronan’s shoulder and chest. Then Adam let go of him again and blinked down at his own hands, studiously lining up the deck of cards and bouncing it against his palm.

Ronan found his way back to the keg, checking on Blue’s situation as he crushed leaves and twigs beneath his boots. Blue had pulled the hood of her sweatshirt … well, it seemed like half of a sweatshirt … up over her head and was talking animatedly to a couple other girls with black and purple lipstick and weird fishnetty-looking outfits. She seemed perfectly unbothered.

“You don’t go to our school, do you,” someone asked him from the other side of the keg, as he pulled an even sharper angle on his cup this time.

Ronan glanced up and let his irritated silence answer for him.

“I didn’t think you did,” the guy continued, uninvited. “Did you really come here with Blue Sargent? Damn. Always figured she had a mysterious boyfriend somewhere who could kick my ass.”

Ronan looked the kid over; he had soft, expressive eyes and was cloyingly cute. And he only came up to Ronan’s shoulder. Ronan wasn’t sure about how to answer, here. If he said he wasn’t with Blue, would people then assume he’d come with Adam? There wasn’t a good way out of this, so he just narrowed his _fuck off_ glare until the kid babbled some more nonsense and laughed nervously and walked away.

“Are you out to these people?” Ronan asked Adam, quietly, when he sat back down. They were side by side, now.

“What? Uh,” Adam’s eyes opened wider, his pupils broad in the firelight. “I mean … I’m not _not_ out.”

“Okay.”

“I just … why? Why do you ask.”

“Someone just asked me if I was here with Blue,” Ronan tipped his cup in the direction of the crowd around the keg. “I’ve said like five words to her. Ever. And she continues to look at me like she’s gonna remove my intestines with a boxcutter. Figured maybe it doesn’t occur to them I’d be here with you instead. Didn’t want to out you.”

“It’s not like it’d be an issue, I just … I think it was just easier not to invite any additional judgment,” Adam said. He’d put the cards down at some point and was just twisting his fingers together, pressing his thumb against his knuckles. “I don’t have time to explain bisexuality ten times a day. That doesn’t mean I care what they think now.”

“Good. Because I’m not telling them I’m here with a girl.”

“I never asked you to,” Adam shook his head swiftly; his gestures were so reserved -- like he couldn’t spare the energy for more. “I don’t need protecting.”

“Fine. I didn’t say you did. These kids know I don’t fucking belong here. I didn’t want to cause you any shit.”

Adam licked his lips, a rapid movement, as he lifted his head to take in the crowd. Surely he’d see the occasional suspicious glances and whispering and narrowing of eyes.

“You said you were eighteen,” Adam said without looking at him.

“Did I?”

“Why are you calling them _kids_ ,” Adam folded his arms, leaning a little closer as he laughed. “They’re your age.”

“Whatever.”

“Do they think I’m cool, now? Sitting with you?” Adam nudged his shoulder against Ronan’s.

“They probably think it’s a cry for help,” Ronan said, gulping more beer.

Adam was flush against his side now, absently exploring a rip in Ronan’s jeans with his fingertip. Ronan tried not to shiver. Sometimes Adam’s classmates would come by in twos or threes to say hello, to look and see it really was Adam sitting there. Adam acknowledged them as little as possible, interacting only when asked a direct question. He mostly ignored them in favor of Ronan.

Adam was … kind of an asshole. Ronan couldn’t help but smirk about it.

“What time is it,” Adam clamped a hand over his own left wrist. “I forgot my watch.”

Ronan pulled his phone from his pocket and held it out to Adam, just like he’d do with Noah or Gansey. He couldn’t tell if Adam was satisfied with whatever answer he got. Adam just handed it back, his brow furrowed a little, and then tilted his head so his cheek was against Ronan’s shoulder.

Adam barely knew him. The fact of Ronan’s current employment was thudding against his rib cage like a time bomb. Ronan probably need to pull that pin now, before it seemed like he was being deliberately deceptive about it.

Maybe Adam didn’t _want_ to know him. He didn’t seem to want to know any of these other people, except Blue. Maybe Adam just wanted something fleeting and exciting, a summer hookup before he went away to college to get serious with his life.

Ronan had been pursued and acquired like that before. He’d been _wanted_ like that before -- superficially; possessively. He didn’t want to be wanted like that again.

“What happened to Blue,” Adam straightened up, scanning the forest.

Ronan pointed; her little group had migrated to a picnic table for what looked like a very slow and ridiculous game of cards. There was a pile of coins between them.

“Oh. Hey. Are you any good at poker?” Adam asked.

“Why?”

“Because otherwise Blue and I will clean you out.”

Adam hopped up off their makeshift bench and grinned as he helped Ronan up to his feet. He didn’t let go of Ronan’s hand, and the more suspicious or surprised glances they got, the tighter Adam clung to him. Ronan didn’t know if it was Adam being nervous or defiant or defensive, or what, but he did recognize that his own crush was surging dangerously.

* * *

“Full house,” Blue announced, flipping her hand face-up and smiling, all innocent. Ronan sighed and tossed his cards onto the table.

“Every other time,” Ronan grumbled. “Every single other time you had jack shit.”

“She plays the long game,” Adam laughed as Blue gathered up her coins. Adam reached over to steal a peek at Ronan’s cards, and then he shook his head.

“Don’t give me that pitying look,” Ronan pressed an index finger against Adam’s shoulder; it was a flimsy excuse, but whatever.

“I’m not. I warned you,” Adam gave him a long, challenging stare, and Ronan was distracted by the way Adam’s mouth curved up to one side, his lips slightly parted.

“Whose deal is it,” Blue stacked the cards up, rapping them loudly against the picnic table, startling Ronan back to their immediate surroundings.

“I think it’s me,” Ellie held her hand out, palm up, to receive the cards. She had just begun her shuffle when a loud rustling and bursts of shouting made all their heads turn toward the entrance path.

“Guard! Royal guard!”

The words sprung up in a wave toward the back of the party, and Ronan’s blood turned to ice water, his joints frozen up.

“Guard’s here! Get out!”

“Shit! Shit, come on,” Adam held Blue’s upper arm and helped her up. Ronan scanned the crowd around them for any hint of black and gold regalia, but the bottleneck toward the path made it impossible to--

“Ronan!” Adam demanded.

Ronan shook off the panic, unfolded his legs from the built-in picnic bench, and stood up.

“I know you don’t want them to see you,” Adam grabbed and squeezed Ronan’s fingers, then let go again and jogged ahead to where Blue was waiting. “We’ll go around though the woods and circle back.”

“Everyone is going around,” Ronan muttered, tramping over weeds and fallen branches anyway.

“If you have a better idea, we’d love to hear it,” Blue shot him a sharp glance over her shoulder.

“Just -- don’t follow anyone else. Stay away from crowds, don’t -- don’t do the safety in numbers thing. They can’t follow everyone. They’re lazy, they'll go for the biggest groups. And get back into that tunnel, fast. Don’t wait for me. Don’t turn back for a second.”

“We’ll go this way,” Adam moved his chin in the directly of a gap in the trees, away from anyone else, and Blue nodded. “We’ll meet you underground.”

They started off, and Ronan lingered, watching to make sure they had a good lead and weren’t being followed. Ronan could see a couple of patrolmen now, elbowing their way into the clearing, kicking over bottles and chairs. He couldn’t make out their faces, but they’d probably be taking IDs and arresting whoever so much as looked at them wrong. It was after one in the morning, well past curfew, so they’d be like kids in a candy store, racking up violations and bonus points with the Commander.

Ronan was going to be recognized, for sure. He didn’t want it to happen around Adam and Blue.

But maybe he’d be able to slip out through the underground with the others. He had to at least try it. The Guard wouldn’t know where they were going.

Ronan took a different route than the one he’d seen Adam and Blue tackle. The forest was pitch black around the flashlight beam from his cell phone, but he could hear other footsteps hurrying along in orbits toward the same general point.

He pulled open the hidden door and ran down the uneven stone stairs, and as soon as he took about seven steps down the hallway and the lights grew brighter, he slid to a halt, and his stomach clamped up tight. Just ahead, there were two more Royal Guard in full uniform, detaining a couple of Bordlanders trying to escape.

Blue and Adam.

It was a dead end.

Ronan spun and hissed at the kids behind him to go back up the stairs, to find another way home. They didn’t seem to want to believe him that the Guard had infiltrated their secret passage, but as they craned their necks around him, their eyes widened, and they backed up.

Ronan could still escape that way, too. The Guard hadn’t seen him yet, or if they had, they’d already been preoccupied with Blue and Adam. They wouldn’t chase him.

He swore under his breath and marched down the tunnel toward them. Maybe they wouldn’t recognize him.

One of the Guard had Blue turned toward the wall with her hands stuck back behind her, like they were going to cuff her. Ronan’s jaw clenched so hard that his temples hurt.

“The fuck are you doing with her,” Ronan said, his voice ringing through the metal walls of the underground passage. “Let her go.”

The shorter, rounder patrolman tilted his head toward Ronan; he’d been swinging a collapsible nightstick back and forth.

“Captain Lynch?”

“Great job, jackass,” the other Guard muttered, rolling her eyes. “Can’t you see he’s undercover?”

Ronan’s fingers tightened into a fist, but he stayed still. No sudden movements. He could see Adam’s eyes lasering in on him with shock.

“I said, let go of her,” Ronan’s glare flicked over to the guy with the nightstick again. “These two are mine. And my brother’s waiting for my report about it. If you two fuck with my directive, he’s not gonna like it. At all. Get your ass back to the checkpoint.”

The Guard exchanged glances, perhaps trying to determine if Ronan was good for his word. No one would want to risk pissing off Declan Lynch, though. They shrugged and released Blue, then turned and headed back down the tunnel, looking irritated.

“No fucking detours!” Ronan called after them; they kept marching.

“... _Captain_ Lynch?” Blue’s voice was horrified; Ronan winced a little. “No, no, I’ve seen a picture of Captain Lynch, he’s--”

“Your brother,” Adam said, quiet and sharp, outrage pushing away the visible disbelief. Ronan couldn’t bear to look him in the eye, but he also couldn’t look at anything else.

“I was going to tell you--”

“The hell you were,” Adam backed away, keeping Blue’s arm tight in his hands. “He’s your brother, isn’t he? You’re with the Royal Guard. You used us to find the passage.”

“What? No, I wasn’t trying to--”

“I can’t believe I trusted you. God, I’m such an idiot! And now they know about the tunnel! They’ll be down here patrolling it or blocking it off or -- or _taxing_ it -- fuck!”

“Adam,” Blue said. “Maybe he didn’t mean--”

“Do you think it’s really a coincidence? That there are suddenly Royal Guard down here?” Adam let go of her as he turned to her.

“I didn’t tell them anything,” Ronan insisted, his chest squeezing so hard he couldn’t breathe right. “It wasn’t me. I swear, man!”

“Don’t,” Adam looked at him sharply, businesslike, his face coldly elegant. “Are we under arrest? If you’re not arresting us right now, then we don’t have to talk to you. We know our rights.”

“Adam, listen to me--”

“Don’t. Don’t come back here, Captain Lynch. Do you hear me? Ever again.”

Adam took Blue’s hand in his, and they hurried away from Ronan, not turning back for a second.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title comes from the MUNA song <3


	4. Fool's Paradise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> chapter contains a reference to past child abuse

Adam sat cross-legged on the floor, spine straight, palms resting atop his knees.

The floor was beneath him was an expanse of gray marble, not a crack or seam anywhere as it sprawled out in four directions, forming a cavernous, perfect square. He inhaled slowly, breathing in only clean energy and expelling any leftover dust from his body on every long, gentle exhale.

The walls of his space were made of metal -- no, glass. They were solid, flawless glass, and he was elevated high on the twenty-fifth story of this downtown skyscraper. The penthouse.

When he opened his eyes, he’d be able to see far in all directions -- the whole city -- but that morning air still could not touch him in his space. He breathed in and out again, concentrating on elevating the crown of his head toward the ceiling.

The ceiling was eggshell white, wetly smooth, like a river-worn stone.

Maybe there was a river out there, beyond the city. Or flowing through it, beneath it, beneath him. He couldn’t decide.

He faltered. The splintery floor board prickled at his hip -- no, it was marble. It was marble. No splinters, no dirt, no shortcomings, no flaws.

Was there a river, or not? He imagined looking to his left, through the perfect force-field glass. Except that now he could see the edges meeting the floor, and it wasn’t airtight after all. Wind howled at the creases and frames, battering his shields. He breathed in and out again, expressing his intention upon the space, trying to stop the leaks. He sealed the openings one by one, but the walls still rattled as some intruder pounded, insistent and relentless--

“Adam! We’re gonna be late!”

Adam let it all go in a rush of frustrated breath as he blinked around at his actual surroundings. He was cooped up in his tiny closet of a spare room at Fox Way, which he’d been rapidly outgrowing for close to a decade. The floor was dusty wood, the windows nonexistent, the air heavy with humidity.

“I’ll be right there,” Adam called, pushing himself up to his feet. His mind was already racing again in every direction, and now he could add a failed attempt at calming his anger and betrayal with one of Persephone’s visualization tricks. He’d done little more than waste thirteen precious minutes.

* * *

“Hey,” Blue whispered from his right, nudging his ribs with her elbow. “You listening?”

Adam was not.

He pressed a fingertip against his forehead, at the place Persephone occasionally gave him a gentle tap, to remind him to concentrate.

Adam couldn’t seem to fully concentrate on anything, not since those two words had echoed through the underground:

_Captain Lynch?_

His perfect compartmentalization had been shattered with a crowbar, and now he couldn’t hold any single thought in his mind for long enough to process it or to act on it.

He was relieved that Blue was here at the council meeting. She’d keep them both on track.

“--and now they’re everywhere. The curfew wouldn’t be such an issue if it weren’t for the sheer goddamn pettiness,” Calla was saying, rapping a knuckle against the conference table.

“Blue. Adam,” Maura looked them both in the eye, in turn. “Why didn’t this guardsman arrest you? If he was undercover?”

“I … don’t know,” Adam said, fidgeting with his watch. “He obviously didn’t know he could’ve had Tir’e’lentes blood.”

“Are you sure he didn’t know who Blue was?” Maura glanced between them, back and forth.

“I don’t think he was the problem,” Blue shook her head, then stared Adam down when he tried to protest this. “I really don’t. I think he was just screwing around in Cabeswater too much and then realized he was busted. Otherwise we’d both be talking to you from a Henriettan jail phone right now.”

Adam did not share Blue’s confidence about this, about Ronan, but he knew his temper would combust if he started to argue about why.

God, he’d really been such an idiot, dropping all these barriers for a complete stranger. And for what? Because of those ridiculous eyelashes? The magnetic energy? The way Ronan had been checking on Blue all night at the party?

It’d been a couple of days already, and the betrayal still stung Adam’s fingertips and his cheekbones like he’d been burned. _You promised_ , Adam thought, tasting blood in his mouth. _You said I could trust you_. _How could I be so stupid?_

“Adam,” Persephone’s voice rang in his head; he knew she hadn’t spoken that loudly. His gaze snapped guiltily toward her, where she was frowning down at her crochet work, flattening a delicate, daisy-petal circle.

“You’re taking this too personally,” Maura sat up straighter. “None of this is your fault.”

Adam could only laugh at that, harsh and short.

“We need to focus on some real solutions,” Amir declared. He was the only councilmember not to reside at 300 Fox Way. “What if we take another shot at the parliamentary petition?”

“It’s a months-long process, and it gets us nowhere,” Calla snapped.

“That doesn’t mean we can’t take it up again and annoy the Crown,” Maura said, slowly and absently. She was addressing the other councilmembers, but she was still watching Adam and Blue. “But you two. You need to come clean about whatever _your_ plan has been. What have y’all been cooking up over there?”

“It’s much more dangerous than you realize,” Persephone said, her voice barely a squeak.

Blue and Adam exchanged a freaked-out glance. Adam tried to shake his head at her, moving in what he hoped was a slight, mostly imperceptible way. But Blue grimaced and shrugged back at him, and his muscles tensed as he realized she meant _they clearly already know, so might as well admit it_.

Adam’s temples were starting to ache.

“My father says,” Blue began, and the room got extremely quiet, “that the Forest can help us. If we let it.”

“Your father,” Maura crossed her arms, leaned down on the table.

“You shouldn’t talk to that jackass all alone,” Calla said.

“She hasn’t been alone,” Adam said automatically, defensively, before he realized this was going to get him into trouble, too. The Council’s collective gazes snapped warily toward him. Blue gave him another little lift of her shoulders.

“What exactly is his suggestion, then, if he suddenly feels like providing answers,” Maura sighed.

“The Forest needs a Magician,” Blue said. “It needs … mobility. You know? A vessel. Like we’ve read about. Like the other Magicians in history.”

“The Magicians throughout history have lost their minds,” Maura said.

“Or worse,” Calla pointed at them. “Much worse. You know this.”

“I think they were doing it wrong,” Adam couldn’t help speaking up, and he had everyone’s attention again. “I’ve done the research. We both have. We’ve spoken to Artemus. There was something missing before, something … stabilizing. Something I’m sure we can figure out, if we try.”

“Adam,” Maura frowned as she looked at him -- not in a suspicious or disappointed way, but something more like ... pity. Adam’s teeth locked together.

“It’s true! We can show you the old grimoires, the ones in the library,” Blue insisted.

“Those are in pieces. Rotting away,” Calla shook her head. “Do you honestly think we haven’t tried that? That you kids are suddenly possessed with more knowledge and experience with the Forest’s magic? We’ve had twice as long to research this than you have even been alive on this planet.”

“Blue is Tir’e’lentes,” Adam said, quietly, so he wouldn’t shout it. It had a powerful effect. Maura frowned down at her hands, and Calla huffed out a breath of frustration.

“Hm. Adam is very smart,” Persephone said mildly, detached, as if pondering whether to add more sugar to a rhubarb pie. “He could figure this out.”

“Oh, I’m sure they’ll figure something out, all right,” Calla muttered. “They’re gonna get themselves killed in the process.”

“You shouldn’t do this alone,” Maura said, staring intently at each of them in turn. “I know you think you can outsmart us, the Forest, the whole world. You think you’re invincible, but you’re not. The Forest doesn’t think in human time, or emotion, or life. It thinks on a much larger scale. You two are just little ants to the Forest, do you hear me? Tir’e’lentes blood or not!”

“We hear you,” Blue picked up a ballpoint pen and clicked it furiously, fidgeting in her chair. “We’re not in kindergarten.”

“If you’d just let me show you the grimoires, what I think Artemus is referring to--” Adam began again, but Maura cut him off.

“No more secret Forest homework. You’re not in kindergarten, no, but you are still teenagers! You’re not going to be tools of the Forest. I don’t care what you think you’ve found in the books. We know what’s in there, and we aren’t offering up our children for the Forest to use up and throw away. It’s too dangerous. If we knew how to use the Forest’s magic like that, we’d make a very careful decision on who would be able to handle that power. An adult.”

“I said we _heard_ you,” Blue tossed the pen onto the conference table and shoved her chair back, hopping to her feet. “Why don’t you try another strongly-worded memorandum to the Crown, instead. We have jobs to get to.”

Adam hadn’t necessarily been ready to storm out, but Blue had said _we_ , and he knew how to take a hint from Blue Sargent.

_I can trust you, right? Promise me._

_I promise._

Adam didn’t really see any of his surroundings as he followed Blue out onto the street, past the library and the parking garage, through the alley toward Main Street. He didn’t ask where they were going. He just kept seeing the way Ronan had ordered the other guardsmen around, so naturally, without hesitation.

How had Adam not seen the resemblance? At the library, earlier, he’d searched for photos of Commander Declan Lynch, and there were the same pale blue eyes, the same aggressive brows. Ronan’s face was thinner, sharper somehow, but the genetics didn’t lie.

If the Guard hadn’t shown up, Adam still wouldn’t know the truth. He’d probably have debated about whether to ask for a kiss goodnight.

“Do you want anything, or not,” Blue was asking him, watching him with pursed lips. She obviously knew where his mind was and had been for the last forty-something hours.

Adam blinked up at the building in front of them. The coffee shop. He didn’t even remember how he’d arrived there.

“Yeah, sure,” he pushed open the jingling door and trudged in.

The coffee shop looked blessedly clear of Royal Guard, so Adam got a tea for Blue and a coffee for himself. It was still well before curfew, enough so the place was still full of customers.

“Adam,” a breathy voice surprised him after he’d sat down and stared into his coffee for a while.

He and Blue both looked up at the source.

“Amy,” he greeted one of his classmates, forcing a polite smile. They generally saw each other at the Saturday markets, where Amy also worked, but they didn’t talk much. One time, in second grade, she’d held his hand at recess every day for a week and written their initials in peach-colored chalk on the playground, which basically meant they’d been briefly engaged.

“I thought I saw you at Deuce’s party Saturday night,” she hovered over their table, twirling a straw in her iced coffee. “The one that got busted?”

“Mm,” Adam saw Blue looking at him and then at the door, like she wanted to leave them alone. “You got away okay?”

“Yeah, thankfully. You too?”

“Didn’t get arrested,” Adam sipped at his coffee.

“That guy you were with,” Amy forged ahead, in a way Adam had been fervently hoping against. “He was in the market with you, too, wasn’t he? Is he … Henriettan? Or, um. Something?”

Adam didn’t mean to, exactly, but he slammed his coffee cup back onto the table, making a loud clacking sound.

“Yeah, he’s Henriettan,” Blue rested her cheek in her palm as she looked up at Amy, perhaps gauging her reaction, or trying to act casual.

“Oh! Oh. Okay. So maybe this is dumb of me, but I didn’t actually know you were, um,” Amy chewed on her straw for a moment, glancing around the shop and then back at Adam, like he was supposed to give her some kind of cue.

Adam watched her, expectant and quiet.

“You know,” Amy continued helplessly, leaning a little closer. “Gay.”

“Uh-huh,” Adam sighed. He considered correcting her, but his nerves were perilously frayed, and he very much wanted this conversation to end.

“It’s totally okay with me, I mean, you know that, right? I’m happy for you! Um. Okay, well. Next time, introduce me! He’s cute.”

“I know,” Adam dragged a hand through his hair. _I know_.

“I wish you’d told me earlier! I would’ve been fine with it. Okay, um. I gotta go. Bye.”

Blue’s tired gaze followed Amy until she’d sat with her friends in a far corner, whispering urgently.

“You didn’t want to give her the bisexuality presentation?” Blue popped the top of her cardboard cup and dropped her little tea sachet onto it.

“Not really in the mood,” Adam wrapped his hands back around his coffee and stared at it again. 

“Yeah, well. It was nice of you. She’s going to think that’s why you’ve never asked her out.”

“I did ask her out.”

“You were like … eight,” Blue poked him with the end of a plastic coffee stirrer. “That doesn’t count.”

“It doesn’t matter now. Look, I know Maura said we shouldn’t--”

“Oh, no,” Blue sat up straight, pointing a finger in the air for emphasis. “We’re not giving up. Not just like that. You know we’re onto something. If they don’t want to listen, well. We tried.”

“I have a, uh … a bad idea,” Adam tapped anxiously at his cup, then looked back up at Blue. “I think we should ask your father again. About the ritual. It’s almost a new moon.”

Adam watched the distaste flicker across Blue’s expression, giving way to resignation.

“You want to go tonight,” Blue adjusted a fraying turquoise braided bracelet thing, looking down at the threads instead of up at Adam. “I thought you had to finish that summer reading book for freshman year.”

“I do. But I don’t have to finish it tonight. This is more important.”

“We’ve been working on this for years, Adam. Do you wanna talk about why you suddenly want it to happen immediately? Like, when you’re about to go off to college?”

“They’re not giving us any choice,” Adam set his coffee cup down noisily. “They’ve gone too far this time.”

“You mean Captain Lynch has.”

“It’s a new low, you have to admit,” Adam kept his voice quiet, to temper the harshness that was escaping. “Infiltrating us like this. Is the wall not enough? Keeping us fenced out away from them, like animals? They need to come in here now and pretend to be our friends and trick us into letting our guard down? I can’t stand it anymore!”

“Why’d he let us go,” Blue leaned forward, her sincere expression too much to process. “If he was really here to infiltrate us? They why didn’t he arrest us?”

“I don’t know what his plan was. Doesn’t really matter why he let us go. The point is, they know about the underground now, and it was easy! I’m the one who let him down there. He didn’t even have to ask. I volunteered it! I trusted him because I wanted to -- because I wanted _him_ \-- and now I … I have to fix it.”

“Okay, just a little reminder, here … none of this was your fault.”

Adam didn’t mean to give her a dirty look, exactly, but her reaction told him he’d done it anyway. His mind raged and ranted like a stormy sea, and he couldn’t seem to steady it. He needed action. He needed a solution.

“We’ll talk to Artemus,” Blue offered, her lips pursing slightly. “Tonight. If you want. We just need to be careful about how we get there. You know he doesn’t exactly cooperate with curfew.”

Adam nodded, latching onto this shred of hope, of some idea about how to move forward. He needed something to believe in.

* * *

The Forest was unnaturally silent and motionless as Adam walked with Blue down their usual path. It was simple enough to remember their favorite route, even without the little secret markers they’d taken to leaving here and there as children. A forked branch planted upright in the dirt; three white stones off to one side in a distinct triangle. He still stepped on the mossy creek stones in a particular order, even though his legs were long enough now that he could cross in one big step.

This had been their playground, years ago. They’d been valiant knights, meddling witches, ancient dragons, restless pirates. They’d screeched at each other and tossed bundles of dirt wrapped in leaves like grenades from their perches among the trees. They’d retrieved long, curling patches of speckled bark from the ground by the birch trees and scrawled mysterious messages, tucking them into dark hollows for the fairies to find.

The scrapes and bruises he’d picked up from playing there with Blue were the first ones he’d worn proudly, the marks of adventure and heroism. Marks he could own.

Somewhere out there, buried under a fallen and split tree trunk, was a cheap plastic container crammed with lollipops and chocolate bars. Blue and Adam had long forgotten which nook of the Forest they’d hidden it in. Sometimes Adam would wander off in search of that particular clearing, more for the memory than the promise of free junk food. But it’d been something like ten years, and he’d given up entirely on recovering their forbidden cache.

Shared secrets had been the adhesive of their friendship since the very beginning, since the first time Adam had noticed the other kids ignoring her and avoiding her, so smoothly and cruelly. Even then he’d seen the way she cultivated it, her eyes silently daring them to try her. Even then he’d wondered what it would be like to possess that kind of natural courage and confidence.

They passed the end of the old stone wall, one of the timeless structures that wound up and around through the hills and out of sight. It always made Adam wonder whose hands and shoulders had hauled those rocks into a chain, and what borders they’d been drawing.

On the Henriettan side of the Forest, more and more trees came down every year, and more of the river was diverted. It wasn’t visible from Cabeswater, from anywhere near here, but Blue still swore she could feel it draining the ecosystem. Like surf slowly wearing away the wall of a cliff. Adam wasn’t going to question his best friend’s magical Tir’e’lentes other-ness. But he’d certainly been envious of it. Many times.

“It doesn’t feel like a night where Artemus would show himself,” Blue said, reaching her hand out to brush the sides of an older, towering tree.

“I know. It feels different tonight,” Adam said. He wouldn’t have been able to elaborate, if she’d asked.

“I didn’t think the moon would be gone yet. Not for a couple more nights.”

She was right. Adam had been keeping track. But when he looked up, there was no moon at all, not even a hint of a sliver. The brilliant stars overhead felt close enough to touch, sharp and clear against the black midnight sky.

It was also chillier than Adam had expected. He wished he’d worn something more substantial than a thin sweatshirt. He clutched the borrowed grimoire against his chest and kept walking, fighting a shiver. Sometimes he believed he could keep himself warm through sheer force of will, by coaxing his body back to stillness and convincing it that he wasn’t really cold.

It was stupid. He knew enough from his physiology textbook to understand that. But he still did it. He still wanted to pretend he could have that kind of control over his own inner workings.

They eventually emerged into the round, central clearing of Cabeswater Forest, where the oldest and most powerful trees were rooted. And right there, sitting clear and well-defined in his thin, human body, was Artemus. Ageless Tir’e’lentes mage, rumored to have been an ancient king’s advisor. A mythical tree spirit inhabiting an awkward, overly tall person shape.

Blue’s father.

He sat cross-legged, with his back pressed against the largest tree, his long fingers splayed over his knees. The breathtaking magic that allowed him to literally inhabit trees in an immortal form was somewhat diminished by his choice of human costume: a pale blue t-shirt with the Cabeswater Coop logo, a grubby pair of cargo pants, and velcro sandals.

“Artemus. You knew we were coming,” Blue greeted him in the distinct businesslike tone that she reserved for her father.

“The stars are so loud tonight,” Artemus replied, his voice soft and tired-sounding. “So are your walking sounds. You approach with demands. We can sense that kind of human entitlement for miles.”

“Are you saying _we_ like some kind of dramatic _royal we_ now? Or are you--”

“We,” Artemus repeated meaningfully, gesturing toward the canopy of branches towering above them.

“Ah,” Blue pressed her lips together as she looked up. Adam could almost hear her focus shift to the radiant stars overhead.

“We’d really like to phrase it more as a request. To help you,” Adam stepped closer, so his sleeve brushed Blue’s shoulder. “You’ve said before that the Forest needs a way to … Apply itself. More efficiently.”

“More of those metal beasts lately,” Artemus sighed, deep and ancient, his mouth crinkling all the skin around it. His small eyes were dark, downturned, shadowed in dark purple. “More of us perish all the time.”

“Then let us help you. We can help each other,” Blue sat down, planting herself on the wild grass and pine needles. “The kingdom who runs those machines, they’re closer and closer to destroying us out there, too. Outside this Forest. They know the heart of Cabeswater is here, across their border. They want to push the Council out and take everything for themselves.”

“They’re spying on us, sir,” Adam followed Blue’s lead and sank down beside her. “If they manage to take us over completely, they’ll control everything. They don’t honor the Forest’s pact like our Council does. They won’t listen. Do you understand?”

“You both need to take care,” Artemus picked idly at the strap of his sandal. “I can see you have that book. The whole Forest knows you have that book. We know what it means. It is no small undertaking, this agreement you seek.”

“We realize that,” Blue said, then turned to Adam, perhaps gauging the real truth of this as she said it.

“But we’re running out of options,” Adam picked up the thread, looking back to Artemus, whose human form was more vivid and opaque than Adam had ever seen it. The night was dark and clear, perfectly suited to the ritual setting hinted at in the grimoire.

It had to be tonight. Adam was sure of it. He could feel the _rightness_ of it as Artemus gazed back at him. His heartbeat tripped over the feel of it, the want of that power. It flowed so easily beneath them, woven into a network of roots and water, and Cabeswater needed it.

“When we select a harp,” Artemus said, his voice thin and strained, “the strings do not choose which song to play.”

“Okay, enough with the vague mystical stuff. We get it,” Blue leaned on her palms, digging into the Forest floor. “Can we convince the Forest to choose a Magician? Or not?”

“Where is your ... _architex_? You are missing--”

“Here,” Adam snatched up the grimoire and let it fall open to where he’d tucked away a copy of the ritual’s design. It had taken months of research to find the four separate puzzles pieces of the diagram, the piece that had been vaguely referenced as the _architex_ . Adam and Blue had tried to learn the Tir’e’lentes language, the strange words of the magical tree-lights, but a lot of it was still guesswork based on context clues. Adam was particularly proud of this one, though. The grimoire was essentially a recipe book -- an instruction manual -- and so of course it would need a layout or design. _Architecture_. It had made so much sense.

Artemus did not look quite as impressed as Adam had expected. He tilted his head slightly, studying the paper Adam had smoothed over his lap, and then looked back up at Adam and Blue.

“I suppose it can still be done, if you wish. This is a good night for our … tree songs,” Artemus rolled his shoulders, then lifted himself to his feet. Blue and Adam stood quickly to join him.

“Now? Right here?” Blue stared over at Adam.

“I’m ready. Are you ready?”

“I, um,” Blue swallowed. “I don’t know.”

“If we wait for the Council’s approval, we’ll be waiting another ten years. We need a Magician now,” Adam said, his eyes following Artemus, who had begun circling the perimeter of the clearing, laying a palm on each of the broadest trees. “You heard him. They’re cutting down the Henrietta side. I want to try this now, while I still have a little time here. I don’t have that much time left before the semester starts.”

“Definitely not another new moon’s worth,” Blue shoved her hands down into the pockets of her knitted vest. “Okay, fine, but we’re definitely both going to be grounded until then. And then some. You know that.”

“I … know,” Adam’s words failed him as they suddenly felt the earth rumbling beneath them, a gentle shaking along the ley line. The noise was everywhere, a low bass note surging its way up through the Forest floor as Artemus completed his circuit.

“Well now they’ll definitely know that we’re up to something out here,” Blue grumbled.

Adam linked his arm through Blue’s and watched as several strange, bluish-silver faces began blinking out at them from the ring of trees in the clearing.

The moon was dark and gone, so the appearance of three very distinct, focused beams of moonlight was confusing, until Adam remembered the ritual design from his research. Three smaller circles contained in a larger one, forming three points of an equilateral triangle.

Artemus had to stand quite close to them to be heard, as he pointed to the circles of light and named each one: “ _Architex_. _Sangua_. _Magus_.”

It was an easy enough equation to solve, at first. They’d already discussed the elusive _architex_ , clutched tightly now in Adam’s fingers. And the _sangua_ , 'blood,' well … that was Blue. She was the only living blood of Tir’e’lentes that anyone knew of. This was why her cooperation was essential to this particular ritual.

_Magus_ , though?

Had Adam miscalculated? He thought _magus_ was the product of this chemical process, not one of the material ingredients. _Magus_ was supposed to be the outcome. Magician.

Artemus pointed again, more slowly this time, as if they were children who’d sung the alphabet wrong.

“ _Architex_ ,” Blue said briskly. She took the paper from Adam’s hands and set it in the designated left-most spot, weighing it down with a smooth, oval stone.

“ _Sangua_ ,” Adam pointed at her, and she nodded, then went to the right-most circle. Adam followed her, and they both stared ahead at the empty _magus_ circle.

“That leaves you, _magus_ , no?” Artemus gestured with a nod of his head. “Our song will not last until dawn.”

“Whoa, whoa,” Blue shook her head, taking the grimoire for herself and scanning the pages. “That’s not the … you can’t be …”

“No, that can’t be right,” Adam took a step backward. “This is a divining ritual. The Forest chooses. Makes a pact. An agreement. You’re supposed to tell us who to ask.”

“My human words are not right, I know,” Artemus swept closer, “but this is what we ask. The pact, magus. Magician.”

“It has to be someone else,” Blue flipped two pages in rapid succession. “Adam’s going to college! He can’t be tied here. This isn’t how it goes.”

“Who else have you summoned here, then, daughter? You cannot sing harmony with yourself.”

“I didn’t know we were supposed to bring them here to you!”

Adam crouched down to balance himself; he felt as shaky and unstable as the Forest all around him, beneath and beside and beyond.

All this time and energy spent researching and studying and collecting and reading, gathering the pieces, all so he could come here and see some essential part still missing. The failure ravaged the back of his throat, the roof of his mouth. He chewed at his bottom lip and tried to lay out the possibilities like an array of tarot cards in his mind.

Adam and Blue had always been odd ones out, in their own ways. Blue, despite her ancient lineage, with no psychic ability to speak of. And Adam, just plain Adam, a boy with no magic to offer anyone. Sure, Persephone would argue that they were still divining whatever sensitivities or talents he might have, deep inside, but he also sensed she was just trying not to hurt his feelings.

Adam was part of the Fox Way family in so many ways. Why couldn’t he have this one? This critical bond?

He knew it would toss a wrench into his carefully calculated future plans, his four-year degree scheme. But those had been diagrammed by the plain, ordinary, unremarkably human Adam Parrish. With the Forest’s magic at his fingertips, couldn’t he plan for more than that? Couldn’t he be more?

And would there even _be_ a Cabeswater to go home to, to save, if they didn’t take this drastic action right now? Could he truly focus on midterm papers and chemistry labs, knowing his family was in danger of losing everything to these backstabbing Henriettans who would apparently stop at nothing?

If the Forest had examined its list of potential candidates, who else in Cabeswater would make the cut? No one could possibly have done more research on the subject, read up on every single past Magician in the history of Cabeswater, studied their strengths, their missteps, their fatal flaws.

“I can do it,” Adam mumbled, mostly to himself. Then he stumbled to his feet again and looked at Blue, who’d called his name.

“Adam! Are you okay?”

“It’s me,” Adam said, gathering more volume. “Magus. It has to be me.”

“What? No way, you can’t do this, it’s dangerous--”

“I can, though,” he reached out to clutch at her hand. “We can do this together. Trust me, Blue.”

“I trust you, you know that. I don’t know if I trust anyone else!”

“It has to be me.”

He gave her fingers a squeeze, then summoned his willpower and stepped carefully into the one empty circle of light. It blinded him, and he winced and blinked out toward Artemus. He ducked to the side and rolled his shoulders, trying to find an angle where his vision would adjust.

“So be it, magus,” Artemus said, his voice rumbling like goosebumps over Adam’s skin, down his spine.

Adam rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands, but the light was getting brighter, surrounding him, expanding out beyond his body.

“Adam?” Blue’s voice called to him from somewhere; Artemus was speaking another language now and ignoring them.

“I’m okay,” he shook his head and tried to speak in her direction. “I’m okay, can you see me?”

“I can’t -- it’s too bright where you are--”

“Stay still, all right? Hold on--”

Adam jolted and shook his ankle, his toes, but the leaves at his feet were restless and stirring. The weeds in this clearing were longer than he remembered, and he’d become entangled. The voices around him built up steadily and restlessly, shifting this way and that in a growing wind. He felt dizzy, like the ground was spinning--

He was trapped there. He bent his knees a little, pushed against the vines, testing their strength. They kept him neatly ensnared. He couldn’t move, couldn’t see. He felt a pull at his wrists, urging them back behind his back.

“ _Magus_ ,” the voices repeated, like deep drums in his head. He swallowed hard and tilted his head back.

_You can do this, Adam. They need you._

A steady, high-pitched whine started in his ears, and his vision went from white to black. He stopped resisting the vines, his muscles aching from the effort they’d been somehow sustaining. He drew in a shaky, staccato breath, and when he exhaled, he thought for one wild moment that he’d just released a cloud of fluttery white moths from his own lungs. They twitched and bounced in the air around him.

He was dreaming. He had to be.

He was standing in a creek, the water bubbling over his toes. He wasn’t sure if he could really see it, or if he was still blind, but he knew the water should be much colder than it was. The creek widened on the horizon. Overhead, he could hear a bird calling to him -- a crow, maybe, cawing insistently, urging him to follow.

The water was at his shins, now, churning more rapidly. Then the ground began shaking again, rumbling so violently that he fell to his knees. But instead of plunging into the water, he felt something cold and soft dissolving between his fingers. It was fresh snow.

He was on a snow-covered path, and it went on … forever. No beginning, no end. High on a hill in this distance, though, miles ahead, someone waited for him.

Adam struggled to see who it was, and he hauled himself back to his feet. He had to walk, to move faster -- he had to close the gap--

He stumbled again, though, the chains at his ankles cutting into his skin.

When had they become chains? They clanked heavily, yanking him down again toward the shaking earth. The ground was erupting with thick, gnarled roots, pushing their way to the surface, crumbling the ancient, knee-high stone wall. Everything was cracking, tumbling, falling sideways. He heard the crow’s plaintive call again, could see its silhouette somehow blacker than the starlit sky, but he tripped and crumpled in on himself, the weight too much to carry.

Everything was a dull, muffled blackness. Adam blinked up at the stars, now his only company, but his vision closed in around itself.

* * *

“Adam. Adam, wake up, please!”

“Give him some space. He needs to breathe. I cannot believe you two--”

“Why isn’t he waking up! Adam?”

“Shh.”

Adam could hear their voices, floating to him through water. Was he in the bathtub again? Like when he was little. He knew they were only worried about him, but he didn’t want to see their sad faces, their eyes full of pity, their arms reaching out -- he could take care of himself--

“If Artemus would show his pathetic face--”

“Mom, that’s not helping, please, just do something. Wake him up!”

Did they always have to talk about him like this? Like he couldn’t hear them? He was right there, he could defend himself, could do it all himself--

Adam sat up. Or, he tried to, at least. But he wasn’t in the tub, or on the couch. There was nothing around him, not at first. He was … floating, but not in water--

“Magician.”

Persephone’s soft voice rang in his skull like a metal chime. Adam opened his eyes.

He was floating, all right. About two feet over the Forest floor. He was back in the clearing, and it was lit by more fireflies than he’d ever seen in one place. They pulsed in sync, all around him, in an unusual pattern. Twice quickly, then off, then twice again. It matched his heartbeat.

Adam blinked, tilting his head from one side to the other. He lifted his arms and set his feet lightly onto the grass, deliberately letting go of the levitation energy.

He looked up at his family, surrounding him, staring at him. It wasn’t pity, this time, or concern, or anger.

It was fear.

“Magician,” Persephone nodded to him. “We have work to do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is named after the XYL0 song.
> 
> I'm keeping pace so far posting a chapter a week! This really has been good motivation to finish. Thanks so much for your comments and encouragement :)
> 
> My [spotify playlist for this fic is here](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0RUcQwlsdAXOQqzgdizZuJ?si=fbTynydEQx6nr9zxbHtPQA), if you're interested!


	5. What We Had

Ronan was running from something.

The dream forest was imbalanced and choppy, everything around him more gray and muted as it had been lately, perhaps by another modified prescription dosage. It was fuzzy, but aggressive; Ronan had to struggle just to keep his footing. Abstract suggestions of leaves thrashed along the ground, tossing him like a cardboard ship on a stormy ocean.

Ronan was so unsettled that he nearly found himself slipping back to consciousness again, but he was stubborn. He held on. He stayed, even though he could hear the forest crying out to the Greywaren. It was the forest’s secret name for his dead father, and the mournful sound of it tended to pulverize him from the inside out. Sometimes he felt like the name was shaking free from his own chest cavity.

He held on. Something was different, something wrong, so he held on and squeezed his eyes shut against the ache.

He heard the dream forest whispering to him now, like it sometimes did, a chorus of many voices that sometimes contradicted each other, sometimes converged into a single babbling river of phrases. He wasn’t sure what language they were speaking; if he tried to focus on that too much, his head began to hurt.

The forest’s voices flowed together again, turning into what sounded like a warped electronic lyrics track from one of Ronan’s favorite songs, and then a bit deeper and smoother, into a voice that Ronan, mortified, thought he recognized as _Adam’s._

Ronan tried to shut it out immediately, thought of everything and anything else -- whiskey, ravens, lightning, drums, oil paints, engines, sunflower fields -- nothing worked for long.

There was a worried tone to the dream voice that lit up Ronan’s nerve endings. It was the sound of distracting concern, a need to locate the Greywaren.

Outside his dream, it was November. Way past time for Adam to have started his first semester at RCH. That’s where he would be, right now. Not inexplicably lending his voice to a dream forest.

Ronan sank down onto the quaking grass, watching the forest’s colors shift darkly, listening to Adam’s voice whisper something he couldn’t comprehend. It was a prayer, maybe, or a song. And there was no one around to hide his reaction from, so he pulled his knees to his chest and tilted his head, rested his cheek on his arm and let the soothing syllables wash over him for a while.

Even when he could make out some of the words, he still had no idea how to interpret the message, or if there even was a message to decode. His dream forest was never clear, or specific. It scared him, sometimes -- knowing he was fucking with a power he didn’t understand. A power that badly wanted to understand _him_.

The rhythmic prayer-song faded away, and his surroundings stilled. Ronan’s breath caught in his throat as he listened to just the breeze for a while, the dissonant, open chords of the rustling leaves.

He got to his feet and wandered restlessly, touching his fingertip to the bark of a nearby tree to encourage an amber ladybug to climb up onto his knuckle.

Ronan watched the insect’s back shift and its wings blur in a buzz of movement, and then the wind picked up again, swirling everything into cyclones.

_Greywaren. Greywaren_.

“I know,” Ronan hissed, turning his gaze upward. “He’s still gone, okay? I can’t bring him back!”

_Greywaren_ , the whispers insisted. _The magic here is real. It is more powerful than you know_.

“Well what do you want me to do about it?” he grumbled.

_Practice. Learn. Grow._

Ronan shivered and slid back down to the ground, keeping the tree trunk at his back. It wasn’t the first time he’d heard the forest asking him to try harder, to get stronger, but no matter how much he asked, he couldn’t get a more detailed request than that.

_Greywaren_ , the forest repeated one more time, voices lifting into the breeze. Then all sound was gone, and dawn began to break beyond the trees. Ronan frequently dreamed of sunrises, but this one was something more, much brighter. He winced as the light started to eviscerate everything around him, and he covered his eyes with curled fingers.

He’d fallen asleep with the window open again. It was the eastern light of early morning pouring into his attic bedroom. He groaned and buried his face in the pillows, but it was too late to fall back asleep again.

* * *

“Keep your fucking head up, Samara. How many times do I have to tell you? You wanna learn the hard way?”

Ronan nudged at the recruit’s chin with an insistent upward press of his knuckle. Not hard enough to hurt, but maybe surprising enough to jar her out of her pattern of muscle memory, get her used to the feeling of moving more defensively. Guarding instead of cringing. She was lean and naturally strong in the way that farmers tended to be, but a little too slow for him to have any real confidence in her yet. And she was always training her eyes downward.

He couldn’t let her start sparring with Declan’s royal guards yet. Not without a hell of a lot more hand-to-hand practice.

He liked her well enough, though. She’d kick all of their asses pretty soon, with enough training. She gave off the outward appearance of modesty, but when spoken to, she looked him directly in the eye with that little spark of Borderlands defiance. It was just daring and stupid enough to be interesting.

If she tried that shit with _Commander_ Lynch, though, she’d be scrubbing the bathroom floors for a week.

There was a reason Ronan was always stuck training the newbies, lately. Ronan talked a good game to keep them from getting lazy and careless, but in the end, giving orders made him queasy. Declan, on the other hand … making the rookies cry was Declan Lynch’s specialty.

It had been Niall’s, too. Or so they all said.

So Declan, the eldest Lynch, had very smoothly and naturally slid into that Queen’s Commander of the Royal Guard uniform without the slightest speed bump.

“It’s after seven. Sir,” Samara’s dark ponytail bobbed as she looked up, fixing him with her rebellious dare of a gaze. She was putting on a brave face, as usual, but he could tell she had a stitch in her breathing, was trying not to bend over to nurse her left side where she’d taken a blow in a match with another recruit whose arms were twice as big around. Her ponytail revealed the bottom half of her dark hair shaved down close to the scalp, like Ronan’s, and he could see tiny beads of sweat on the back of her neck when he paced around her in a quick, watchful circle.

“Fine,” he jerked his chin toward the guardhouse. “Hit the showers. But if your stance is still shit tomorrow, you’re gonna be out here again until you get it right. You hear me?”

“Yes sir,” she muttered, just barely polite enough. They both knew she was pushing it. But she was going to be sore, and tired, and even though he’d put her through the ringer, she still had that challenging glint in her eye.

Ronan liked her. A fierce addition to his personal little rebellion.

“Get moving, then,” he planted his feet wide, crossed his arms, stared her down until she spun and hustled back toward the locker rooms.

* * *

Ronan was greeted by a cloud of comfortingly familiar dust as he finally shoved open the door to Monmouth at half past nine.

The dilapidated, drafty old armory building was still part of Henrietta’s palace grounds, but somehow Prince Richard Campbell Gansey III had convinced his older sister to spare the building from her otherwise merciless master plan for renovation and construction. Gansey had argued that Monmouth Armory belonged on a historical register, and had even commandeered several members of the Henrietta Royal Historical Society to present notarized paperwork attesting to it.

Ronan had only paid attention enough to understand that Gansey could keep his ridiculous underground magical forest research office where it was, thank God. Otherwise Gansey would’ve been inconsolable. Gansey needed his research projects in order to function.

So now Monmouth lurked solitary and forgotten on the northern perimeter as the more modern and soulless new palace buildings had sprung up in an inner ring nearby.

An added benefit of hiding out in Monmouth was the deserted attic space, which Ronan had slowly claimed, inch by inch, with comforting clutter. Old musical instruments from his father’s study, spare polished leather boots for inspection days, towers of ground-shaking speakers. And in one room, piles of sketchbooks, stretched canvases, pastel and charcoal boxes, and easels Gansey had left there without comment.

Ronan hadn’t meant for the painting to be such a _thing_. It had started with his obsessive need to get the dream forest out of his head and onto paper, to memorialize it and free it from his own perilous inner mind. Finding the right colors had been a frustrating torment, at first, but had evolved into a hobby of its own. A challenge.

He’d spent more and more of his free time up there in the attic, with the windows thrown wide open. The painting had become a basic need now. Like … oxygen. It was an outlet, he supposed. A safer one than the ones he used to prefer. He didn’t want to examine it too closely, for fear of ruining the thrill.

Hundreds of forest paintings and sketches had led the way to illustrations of his childhood home, their farm out in the valley. He preserved all these memories, intently and painstakingly. Sometimes it would take seventeen tries to get a wheat field right. But he couldn’t rest until he at least found the color, the one that felt right, like home, like safety. It was a fleeting feeling, but he knew it in his gut when it was right.

Ronan had occasionally tried to paint other subjects, or at least to sketch them out, but that never gave him the same urgency of needing to create something properly. He’d tried sketching Noah, or Gansey, only to crumple the pages, tear them, burn them. He’d even tried to draw Adam, the Borderlands boy he’d had a brief and catastrophic flirtation with over the summer. But his many attempts were maddeningly clumsy, and only exacerbated the ache of what he’d lost there. What could have been. It haunted him, sometimes. At two or three in the morning.

Maybe something was wrong with him. He’d gotten in so deep, and so quickly. It was fucked up. He knew that. He wasn’t going to let the thing with Adam pull the rug out from under everything. He couldn’t.

He wanted to feel better. He wanted to survive. And if he still fucked up at that … well. The important thing was that he didn’t _want_ to. That was enough for now.

Ronan stripped off the royal uniform -- as usual, he couldn’t ditch it fast enough -- and kicked at a crumpled pair of jeans on the attic floor. He sniffed the denim and caught a judgmental head tilt from Chainsaw, his pet raven. She was motionless on the windowsill.

“Don’t give me that,” he pulled on his jeans as well as the first t-shirt he encountered, draped over a folding chair. “You take baths in a muddy rain barrel.”

Chainsaw shook out her feathers and then swooped through the room, just above Ronan’s head, flapping through the doorway and into the hall toward her room at the other side of the attic.

“Theatrical little shit,” Ronan grumbled. He turned on the floor lamp by his easel and assessed the current work in progress. He wasn’t sure he should dive in just yet, though; he could hear someone slamming the door downstairs and moving around Monmouth.

The canvas in front of him was a vague hint of yet another part of his beloved dream forest, this time a creek winding its way along the lower third of the painting. The water had been warming in patches of sunlight, and a carpet of ghostly mist had set in like snow over the grass nearby. None of what he saw in front of him could even come close to actually depicting it.

Ronan couldn’t remember when he’d first started dreaming about the forest. He’d been traipsing through those leaves ever since he was little, singing his preschool songs to the birds and fireflies. His father had told him stories about it, too, and said that their family had ancient ties to the magical woods.

His father had also made Ronan promise to keep those dreams a secret, no matter what. Especially when the dream felt so breathlessly real, and Ronan would wake up clutching a curiously forked twig, or a pointed red blossom. Or, much more recently and alarmingly, a helpless and scrawny baby bird.

The forest hadn’t sent anything dangerous lately, nothing with thorns or blades or teeth. But listening to it cry for his father was way worse than waking up bleeding. In his opinion. Maybe not anyone else’s.

“Ronan!”

Soft footsteps out in the hallway told him that it was Noah, not Gansey, approaching, even before Noah’s voice called out.

“Ronan, you up here?”

Ronan turned the canvas around, so the painting was hidden. Noah knew everything by now, of course, just like Gansey, so another forest painting wasn’t exactly a secret. But it wasn’t anywhere near _right_ yet, and Ronan couldn’t look at it anymore.

“Hey, dickweed,” Noah insisted from Ronan’s open doorway, holding a plastic bottle of soda. “You can’t answer me even one time?”

“You can’t mind your fucking business even one time?” Ronan grumbled, rummaging around one of the desks for charcoals. He was in a charcoal mood.

“God, today was so terrible!” Noah floated in, ignoring Ronan with a total and dependable buoyancy. “Corey left the east ballroom bar station a complete disaster and I think she’s gonna get fired but not before I had to wash out and replace the entire cold prep tray and then I cut myself quartering limes! Where’s Gansey?”

“Not here,” Ronan slid a shallow tray of charcoals free of their cardboard sleeve. He did not comment on the way Noah settled uninvited into his usual spot: a lumpy, lime-green video game chair that had appeared around the tenth time Noah had asked to sit there while Ronan was working. It was one of the ugliest things in Monmouth, which was truly saying something. Ronan entertained another brief fantasy of drop-kicking it back down the stairs. But then Noah would frown and disappear and sulk in his room, and Ronan would succumb to guilt and have to bribe him out with packs of sparklers or expensive clove cigarettes or something.

“Have you seen him today?” Noah looked down at his hand, picking at a neon-orange bandage wrapped around the tip of his thumb. “Or did you, like … stay late training someone again?”

“What does it matter,” Ronan said, flipping a large sketch pad to a blank page.

He didn’t really mind Noah’s presence while he worked. In fact, sometimes he kind of preferred it. He’d never actually admit that out loud, though. And it did definitely hinge on Noah not asking lots of nosy questions.

“You know they don’t like it when you spend all your time on these new kids.”

“Since when do I give a shit what the Guard likes? It’s not in the contract to care about their feelings.”

“Ronan,” Noah said, his voice wavering. “This whole … deal you made? With Declan? He can’t really keep holding you to it, can he?”

Ronan fussily arranged his sketchbook on the easel. He didn’t feel like answering this question honestly, so he didn’t answer it at all.

“I don’t think he really expected you to take him up on it at all,” Noah pressed on anyway. “None of us did. We thought you’d change your mind and stick it out at Aglionby. It was only one more year.”

“Gansey didn’t.”

“Yeah, maybe he didn’t. Maybe he does know you better than me after all.”

“You just underestimate how bad I wanted out of there,” Ronan scowled. “I guess so did Declan. Whatever, it’s done, there’s no point in talking about it now. I signed a contract in front of Helen.”

“But you hate being in the Guard! You’re not a soldier, Ronan. Come on.”

Ronan felt a tiny impact against his arm out of nowhere. It took him a long moment to figure out that Noah had flicked a plastic bottle cap at him.

“Little fucker,” Ronan threw it back. Noah ducked just in time to avoid taking it square in the forehead. “I know. But I told him I’d do it. Not only that. I know my dad wanted me to do it. Besides, technically I’m protecting Gansey’s royal ass.”

“They didn’t need to put you in a freaking uniform for that.”

“It’s done, man! Get used to it. Three more years.”

“Three _years_ ,” Noah groaned, slumping back against his chair. “I’ll be in a nursing home by then. Look, maybe you, like … start selling some of these paintings? Save your own money somewhere Declan can’t reach.”

“Won’t be enough to--”

Ronan cut himself off when he heard the door again.

“Gansey,” Noah said, springing to his feet. “Finally. Come on.”

Ronan didn’t argue. He was glad for an exit from the previous conversation. He wiped his palms over his jeans and followed Noah downstairs.

“Ronan!” Prince Richard Gansey’s voice boomed through Monmouth Armory. Ronan froze, and Noah skidded to a halt, staring back at Ronan for a moment. They both knew that tone well enough.

“Did you take his car again--”

“Shut up,” Ronan snarled, elbowing Noah and rounding the corner.

Gansey wasn’t alone. He had the Crown Princess’s executive assistant in tow, as was happening more and more often these days. Henry Cheng. Ronan narrowed his eyes and squared his shoulders.

“Ronan, we need to have a discussion. Right now. Don’t look at me like that, just listen.”

“What’s going on,” Noah hissed loudly to Cheng, whose lips tightened and eyebrows raised, as if he were in on some juicy bit of intrigue. Ronan ignored them. He was busy searching his own recent memory and could think of no particular offense outrageous enough to warrant a Gansey Discussion.

“I thought,” Gansey stopped about arm’s length from Ronan and averted his eyes, removing his eyeglasses to wipe them on the front of his golf shirt. “I really thought that you had some regard, even some small amount, for your own safety at this point. I can’t believe you would undertake some kind of covert operation right under your brother’s nose. Right under mine, Ronan!”

Covert operation.

Ronan’s eyes snapped automatically to Cheng, who was fidgeting with his gold-plated royal phone, looking as guilty as Ronan had ever seen him.

“You told him?” Ronan managed to say, his jaw clenching.

“He figured it out,” Cheng smoothed down the lapel of his blazer and met Ronan’s outraged stare. “To be honest, Lynch, you are not being especially covert on your end of this operation--”

“You had one fucking job! You know why I didn’t want to--”

“Don’t put this all on him,” Gansey took a step toward Ronan, pointing an accusatory index finger toward Ronan’s chest. “What do you think they’ll do to you, if they find out? If anyone finds out you two -- yes, you too, Henry! -- that you’re deliberately smuggling Borderlanders across the wall? Not just the wall, my God -- into the Royal Guard barracks! What has gotten into you two?”

“It was Cheng’s idea.”

“Oh, pardon me, Captain Lynch,” Henry’s eyes flashed at him, “but I seem to recall _you_ plotting how to exploit the recruitment intake, which incidentally did not actually require you to drain my imported cognac--”

“You lied to me,” Gansey’s voice shut them down again. “Both of you. And now what am I supposed to do with this information? My best friends are casually plotting treason under my roof, and I’m sitting across from my sister at dinner, pretending that I don’t know.”

“This is why you weren’t supposed to find out!” Ronan spread his hands wide, looking up at the ceiling. “It’s too dangerous for you to know anything. Nobody can even suspect that you’re in on it. I thought Cheng could at least keep his fucking mouth shut about this one thing--”

“I told you, Lynch,” Henry held his phone out toward Ronan. “He. Figured. It. Out. Himself! And do you think it was even that difficult?”

“You guys are smuggling in Borderlanders?” Noah’s voice cracked from the corner of the room; Ronan had forgotten he was there. “And you didn’t tell us?”

“For the love of Christ, Noah. It’s for your own good. And especially Gansey’s. That’s what I’m saying, that’s why we couldn’t tell you. It’s … whatever, it’s not a big deal.”

“Not a big deal?” Gansey repeated, his eyes widening. “Do you want me to ask Declan if he thinks it’s a big deal?”

“Declan,” Ronan’s mouth twisted. “He tracked me. Do you know that? He had me followed. He found out I was in the Borderlands on the weekends. So he used me to find the hidden passageways, and then he declared them illegal and started patrolling them. You should see how the Guard is out there, Gansey. Out past the wall. It’s fucked up. I had to do something.”

“So you’ve told me. But I thought we’d think about this together. I didn’t think you’d start something behind my back. Something that could get you arrested, or killed.”

“Technically, it is legal,” Henry said. “The, uh … grey area is our circumvention of the standard background check in favor of our own Cabeswater process.”

“Yes, how comforting,” Gansey gave Cheng such a hurt look that Ronan actually winced himself. “How long have you been helping him? With this little project of yours?”

“... A few months.”

“And what’s your plan, exactly, when you’ve succeeded in importing and training enough Borderlanders inside Henrietta?”

“Mm. _Importing_ is perhaps not an appropriate--”

“We let them decide,” Ronan cut in. “They make up their own minds. They have a way in and out, and they have a way to defend themselves. That’s what their Council asked for. It’s the least I can -- that we can do. To try and fucking fix things.”

“All right, look. I’m tired,” Gansey pinched the bridge of his nose and looked down toward the floor. “And I need to think. I’m going downstairs. Don’t even think about planning anything else without talking to me about it first. I don’t care if you think it’s for my own good. Try to keep this under wraps for a few more hours, at least. While I’m downstairs.”

Gansey disappeared, shaking his head as he went.

“I can’t freaking believe you guys,” Noah squeaked, spinning around in a little circle of restlessness.

Ronan felt like his lungs had been incinerated from within. He gave Cheng another glare and then stalked back down the hall, toward the attic stairs.

“Lynch. Wait.”

Cheng held up an index finger, then produced a small slip of paper from inside his jacket. Ronan looked at him to gauge his seriousness, but Cheng was already spinning on his heel and making for the front door of Monmouth.

“You’re not even going to try to tell me how he found out? Make any excuses?” Ronan growled.

“Try working less unpaid overtime training them all yourself. He notices, when you are gone,” Cheng said over his shoulder. “Subtlety is not your strong suit.”

The door close heavily behind Cheng on his way out.

“I’m gonna go see if he’ll talk to me,” Noah said, leaving Ronan there alone to stare at the little note in his hand. Cheng had slipped it to him like he was tipping a valet.

Ronan planted his feet and memorized the day and time from Cheng. Then he picked up one of Noah’s stray plastic lighters that were everywhere and flicked it at the paper’s edge, watching Cheng’s neat handwriting burn down to his thumb before blowing it out. He dropped the rest into a metal ashtray.

He’d have to come up with some excuse about the timing again. The recruits were always marched in at a time when Ronan was supposed to be working some other shift. But he’d figure something out. He insisted on personally overseeing the individual intake so he could meet each of the Borderlanders he was helping harbor on this side of the wall. It was important to see them in person, hear them talk, get a sense of them. It made creating their fake IDs much easier.

Ronan still wasn’t sure where his little plan was heading in the long run, but for now, it was enough to know he was at least doing something. It helped ease his conscience.

Adam had _trusted_ him. It still kept Ronan awake at night, sometimes. That look of shocked betrayal on Adam’s face. The disbelief in Blue’s expression. The frightened shouts of _Royal Guard!_

He had a debt to repay. And he was working on it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's named a Handsome Furs song. Kind of a shorter one this time, but I think the next one will be longer once I finish fixing/rewriting the middle. Hope I can keep updating every weekend!


	6. No Stranger

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter warning for references to past child abuse

White heather again.

Adam had seen it so many times now that he could recognize it before it had actually bloomed. Maura had told him that white heather was used as a protection charm. And protection was all well and good, if you believed in charms or totems.

Adam Parrish wasn’t exactly in an authoritative place to be presenting verdicts on which type of wacky magic was or was not legitimate.

But the thing was: Adam was a hundred percent sure he’d put in a row of rosemary there. Rosemary would have made sense, would have been equipped to withstand the cooler temperatures of November. White heather was frankly just decorative in his book, and it was most certainly not included in his herb garden inventory plans for Fox Way.

He could transplant it to the eastern border of the house, he supposed. It seemed to be a gift from the Forest, after all, like the other ones. The Forest was entertaining a white heather phase. So maybe he could put it outside the window where he slept. But he wasn’t entirely sure that heather took well to transplanting in general, especially with a chance of frost.

It was magical, though. Adam felt fairly confident this plant would do whatever the Magician wanted it to. 

If only his magical forest could take a liking to something more immediately useful in its gift-giving. Anise, maybe, or chamomile. Something Cabeswater’s villagers would actually be interested in purchasing. Something Orla could _convince_ them that they were interested in purchasing. Adam wasn’t working that garden for fun. He was attempting to earn his keep, now that he’d temporarily deferred college admission and needed to continue living at Fox Way.

Calla would lay into him if she knew he was thinking like that -- about paying them back. But he couldn’t help it. They’d taken him in, under their already cramped roof, fed him and clothed him and loved him as one of their own for so long that it was starting to overshadow the darkness of his younger days, his birth parents. Starting to.

Adam had been part of the Fox Way family for more than half his life. His bruises had long healed. Some of his more serious injuries had left permanent scars or effects -- the way his wrist still ached in the humidity, for example, or the deafness in his left ear -- but it didn’t hurt quite as much anymore to name them.

The creeping anxiety and physiological response of memory was still there and would maybe never go away completely, of course. It was the flash of remembered words, and facial expressions, and dismissive or outright oblivious body language that could still hurt him in a way that he wasn’t able to permanently recover from, not yet.

But he was making progress.

He was currently crouched down and cradling a withered sprig of thyme, but he could still sense Blue approaching, treading carefully between Adam’s perfect rows of plants.

“I’m not late yet,” he yanked a weed from the soil. “Am I?”

“Nope. I got back early from work, though. Thought I’d make sure you weren’t sprouting anxiety thorns or anything.”

“Funny,” Adam brushed off his jeans and stood up. He was aware that walking around outside barefoot was kind of weirding people out, but he was also aware that it made his gardening and magic training easier -- he felt more aligned that way with the energy of the Forest. So he embraced it, and he ignored the way people couldn’t seem to make eye contact with him like they used to.

“I mean I _am_ joking, sort of,” Blue pursed her lips. “But I’ve seen you do weirder things in the last few months.”

“I know.”

“Well. I happen to know the second floor bathroom is open for once. If you want to get ready for this Council meeting.”

“Thanks for the tip,” he gave her a weak smile and a little sprig of white heather.

“What’s your obsession with this stuff lately.”

“It’s not … uh. It’s pretty,” he shrugged. He didn’t know if he felt like admitting that the Forest was now growing things entirely on its own whim, within the private garden of Fox Way.

“Sure,” she eyed him warily. “Well, come on, Magician. We don’t want to miss any of the excitement.”

* * *

Blue Sargent turned out to be good for her word, as usual; Adam locked himself inside the second floor bathroom with the extreme satisfaction that came from the rarity of any stolen private time within a crowded house.

Alone time was even more precious right at that moment, when Adam knew a Cabeswater Council meeting awaited him in less than an hour. It wasn’t that he was nervous, exactly; the Council was led by Maura, Calla, and Persephone, and he trusted their leadership.

But ever since Adam had taken the forbidden initiative of becoming the new Magician of Cabeswater, the Council tended to shift its focus to Adam, the nature of his powers, whether his magic could be amplified, and lots of unexpected personal issues. He was uncomfortable with all this new attention and scrutiny.

The Cabeswater Council -- along with most of the village of Cabeswater itself -- had long awaited a new Magician. The Forest hadn’t cooperated with such a request in something like seventy-five years, and many of the villagers had wondered if they’d fallen out of favor. Now Adam was sure they were probably agonizing even further that their beloved magical forest was being represented by this nineteen-year-old, grease-stained nerd who mixed their herbs and fixed their cars and mowed their lawns, anything for a few bucks to stash away as university savings.

He was absolutely going to reclaim that RCH scholarship, come August. They’d let him defer it for now, despite the way his throat had closed up when he’d made the phone call.

This Cabeswater magic and freedom fighting, it was … an academic hiatus. He had to believe that.

But he was connected directly to the Forest’s magic now, and he wasn’t going to squander it. Magicians didn’t get to keep that Forest energy forever. Adam was going to use it to free Cabeswater. His family. That was what the Forest needed from him.

It had taken a little while for Adam to adjust to the reality of bonding with a magical forest. Despite his constant and immediate surroundings, Adam felt he didn’t take too naturally to the psychic arts. He understood the physical properties of the herbs he cultivated and weighed, but he was skeptical at best about palmistry and cards and scrying. Right up until the Magician ritual, he’d generally seen Maura and Calla and Persephone and Orla as being particularly gifted with rare intuition and advanced emotional intelligence.

But then magic had burst through him, and physically forced him to admit that it was real after all. The Forest wasn’t shy about its intentions. It was going to use Adam somehow, as a fuse, a conductor … something. Something big.

He still wasn’t sure how much magic the Forest was trusting him with. He didn’t know what the limits were. So the Council tested him, pushed him a little harder. Adam had seen the frightening light of ambition and possibility in all of their expressions at one time or another since the ritual.

A sudden banging on the bathroom door told him he was probably using up too much hot water, all caught up in his thoughts again.

“Be out in a sec,” he shouted after he’d turned the shower off.

* * *

Council meetings had certainly changed for Adam Parrish over the last several months. He’d started out as a barely-tolerated teenage spectator, sneaking in with Blue so they could keep tabs on what their moms were plotting for Cabeswater or Henrietta or both.

Now, though, Adam felt their cautious attention on him from all directions, like layers of extra blankets. He shifted uncomfortably in his chair, glancing occasionally to Blue for grounding purposes.

“We need to talk more about your proposal,” Maura said, studying Blue and Adam in turn. “For us to even seriously consider it.”

“We’ve had reports back from three different volunteers now,” Calla said from her chair at the table. “Some younger than these two. They’ve tried the system, and it’s working. They’re inside the damn palace.”

“I think we should try for next week,” Blue said, leaning forward slightly in her folding chair. “Calla, didn’t you say your contact was only open to a couple more at most? We don’t know how long we’ll have this chance.”

“I don’t want to rush anything,” Maura said, narrowing her eyes. 

“Adam won’t have the Forest’s favor forever,” Persephone said, her quiet voice barely audible. “Tell them, Adam.”

“It’s true,” he nodded, twisting his fingers together. “The Forest is … impatient. Henriettans are cutting too deep into their side. And it doesn’t like the wall. It feels like … kind of strangled by it. We need to get on the other side. I can feel it in my bones.”

“You’ve never really been a gut instinct person before, Adam,” Maura’s mouth turned down at the corners.

“I know. I realize that. But I … it’s more than just me, now,” Adam spread his palms upward, staring down at his hands.

“How do we know that this sympathizer bringing in new soldiers from Cabeswater isn’t just trying a new way of exploiting us?” Maura said, looking now to Calla. “Turning our own people into weapons for the Crown?”

“We don’t,” Calla shrugged. “We just have to keep our guard up. This is our only way in right now. Blue and Adam will use this opportunity to our advantage. Report back to us on royal strength, levels of protection, guard rotations, anything and everything they can find.”

“And if they get caught?” Maura’s eyebrow lifted.

“We won’t,” Adam said, leaning forward. “I’ve been practicing keeping this magic under control. For months now!”

Adam heard the note of pleadings in his own voice, but only after it’d been released toward the Council. He didn’t want them to be alerted to his desperation, but his own patience was dipping low, like quicksand through an hourglass.

Adam wanted to strike now, while he knew he had the strength and power of Cabeswater’s Forest, ready to come to his aid at the mere snap of his fingers. The faster he could help free the Forest and his village, the faster he and Blue could get on with their real lives. Blue could start out on the travels she’d always daydreamed about, seeking out Tir’e’lentes relatives in different forests throughout the world.

Maybe Adam would finally be able to put the bitterness of Henriettan betrayal behind him. He could shake the nightmares about Royal Guard lurking behind every corner. He could see that his family was treated well and that his Forest was placated and peaceful again. He could stay out past curfew. He could go wherever he wanted without being interrogated about it.

He could go to _college_.

“They are as ready as they can be,” Persephone announced without glancing up from the clicking crochet needles in her lap. “But we should really have some pie, first. Peach, I think.”

Maura and Calla exchanged a long, intense gaze.

“Well. I think that wraps up our agenda tonight,” Maura finally said, her eyes landing back on Blue.

“Thank God,” Calla sighed, sweeping her chair back from the table with a loud scrape. “I need a drink.”

* * *

“All right, listen up. This is important.”

Adam and Blue glanced at each other, then at their former classmate, Jesse Jenkins, across a desk from them and wearing a Henriettan Royal Guard uniform. It was deeply unsettling.

“The way it works is: you’re gonna be lined up, out in that palace yard with a bunch of other new recruits. And you need to focus on blending. You got me? Just .... blending in. You’re not gonna open your mouth, you’re not gonna talk back, you’re not gonna stand out in any way. This is where you line up with everyone else, and you don’t wanna get singled out before you get your new ID.”

“We understand,” Blue said, her impatience clear. “Then what.”

“Then you walk through the guard station gates. You’re gonna give them these application folders on your way through. There’s a guy who screens those, and he’s our sympathizer. He knows to look for certain numbers. He’s gonna take you into a different room, and if nobody’s stopped you for too many questions by then, you’ll be clear for fake Henriettan identities. You just keep your mouths shut till you get there.”

“How do they get us the new IDs so fast? Fast enough to show them on our first day of training?” Adam asked, flipping through the application packet. It was extremely difficult to push past how surreal this was and just focus on the instructions.

“Who knows. They must have some expensive Henriettan tech. Whoever it is on the other side, they’re gonna put the stuff in your lockers in the barracks.”

“I feel a little uncomfortable relying on so many people whose actual identities you don’t even know,” Blue muttered as she spit a wad of gum into the plastic trash can. She continued pacing around the tiny office.

“We keep people’s identities secret for a reason, Miss Sargent. That way if one of us gets busted, we can’t take the others down with us.”

“I get it. I’m not saying I don’t understand why. I’m just saying it’s unpleasant.”

“Is there anything else we need to remember,” Adam asked, looking up from his paperwork.

“Just -- you need to remember to answer to your fake Henriettan names. Memorize them fast. And follow the rules, and -- and don’t step out of line. Anytime one of us gets extra attention, for a good or bad reason, any reason at all, is dangerous. Get me? You’re gonna do what you’re told, and you won’t have a problem.”

“We should go, then,” Blue came over to nudge at Adam’s arm. “We’ve been in here too long.”

“Yeah. Thanks, Jenkins,” Adam said, and accepted a handshake. “See you in the barracks.”

Out in the palace yard, Blue and Adam were tight-lipped as they looked around at the recruits gathered there -- the real recruits, coming here to sign up to defend the Crown and keep unwanted Cabeswater freaks on the other side of the wall. Adam tried his best to keep his face neutral. 

The line moved in slow bursts, crawling along beneath the arch of the palace gates. Adam calmed himself by counting the number of bars in the metal gate that stood open to their left.

This experience was already testing his control in a way that was deeply worrying. The chilly breeze shook his nerves. He slowed his breathing and told himself that they were fine, that they were not going to get caught now, but his fingertips still bristled with energy, and his mind was invaded by images of tree roots nudging the stone walls, causing towers to buckle and collapse.

Adam was technically ahead of Blue in line, so when they reached the registration table, he walked up first and handed over his paperwork.

“Mm. No prior law enforcement or military?” the Guardsman tapped a pen against Adam’s forms; Adam actually had no idea how much detail had been supplied and falsified.

“No, sir,” he shook his head, glancing around at the archways, identifying possible exits. He had no real plan for if Jenkins had failed them, somehow; what if the paperwork had been screwed up?

Second after awkward second ticked by. Adam felt a ripple of a chill move over his inner arms, up over his elbows. He concentrated on exhaling, releasing energy, calming the Forest’s restless curiosity.

“Right,” the Guardsman signed off on the bottom of Adam’s form, then shoved the documents back into Adam’s hands. “Through there. Stay toward the left, through the security office. Next!”

Adam’s relief was short-lived; he couldn’t exactly celebrate yet when Blue was about to go through the same scrutiny. Adam shot her a hesitant look, but she waved him on with a quick flick of her hand.

He found his way to a white door marked “SECURITY” and paused to compose himself before turning the knob and stepping across the threshold. He gravitated toward the center of a small, square room, dimly lit by a dusty beige floor lamp. A window on the opposite side led to what looked like a control room, or some kind of reception desk, with monitors and a large keyboard. Another door was beside that, but there was no visible handle or any way to open it. There were plastic orange chairs scattered around. Five of them.

Adam turned in a slow circle, looking for any sign of company. He pushed against the other door, testing it, but it was locked quite solidly. When he stood near it, though, he thought he could hear heavy footsteps approaching. He jumped back to the center of the room, tapping his papers idly against his thigh.

The door clicked and swung open, admitting a tall, solid-looking Guardsman with dark hair shaved close to his scalp, a sharp nose and high cheekbones, thin lips, icy blue eyes--

“Captain Lynch,” Adam gasped, the words escaping him before he could process any of it.

Adam’s pulse had launched itself into flight mode. He backed up another step, then another, fumbling behind him to see if he was near enough to the way he’d come in. He wasn’t sure if he could really hear the wind howling outside, or if the Forest was just whispering the idea directly into his nervous system.

“You,” Ronan was saying, staring back at Adam, frozen since the moment Adam had said his name. “Where did you -- You can’t be in here.”

“Are you going to arrest me, then? Like you should have before?” Adam swallowed; his hearing ear had begun vaguely buzzing, and he couldn’t clear it.

“How did you get in here,” Ronan ignored him, shaking his head. Then his gaze dropped to the papers in Adam’s hand. “Oh, no. No way.”

“You know what these are?” Adam clutched the forms against his chest; they crinkled in faint protest.

“Who do you think’s getting the fake IDs?”

“Wait a minute,” Adam closed his eyes, tried to comprehend. Just then, the door behind him burst open again, and Blue strode through holding approved paperwork of her own.

“Oh, you’ve got to be fucking kidding,” Ronan said, his voice sharp and growly.

“What’s -- oh my God,” Blue closed the door behind her and stared. “Captain Lynch?”

“You,” Ronan pointed at Adam, “I might be able to sell as a recruit, if you keep your eyes down, but your scrawny friend here? A soldier in the Royal Guard? No chance. What the hell am I supposed to do with you now.”

“ _You’re_ the sympathizer?” Blue started moving closer; Adam kept her by his side with an arm stuck out across her stomach. Ronan watched flatly and ran his tongue over his teeth.

“This won’t work,” Ronan shook his head once. “I’ll get you back across the wall tonight, but you have to stay out of sight till then. And tell Jenkins he’s lost his screening privileges.”

“We’re not just turning around and running back to Cabeswater,” Adam said, glaring right back at Captain Lynch. “You can’t just kick us back out. We know who you are, now. That’s called leverage.”

“You gonna get me fired, then?” Ronan folded his arms, his jacket sleeves bunching below his shoulders. “Blackmail me? Report me to the Crown? Is that your plan?”

“You don’t think we could get a message across?” Blue shuffled away from Adam’s hold. “You know it’s too dangerous to just let us go. We know too much. So just … deal with it, Captain Lynch.”

“Would you stop fucking _calling_ me that! Christ,” Ronan covered his eyes with his palm for a moment. “I need to think.”

Adam was silent, watching Ronan carefully. Adam had generally understood the concept of Ronan Lynch, Captain of the Royal Guard. He’d even pictured Ronan marching around with the other soldiers, harassing civilians. But the actual sight of Ronan in full royal uniform was enough to drain all the oxygen from the room.

“We don’t need you to care about our safety,” Adam said, steering himself back on course. “We just need you to get us inside.”

Ronan stood motionless for a small eternity.

“Okay. Here’s the deal,” Ronan drew himself up, crossing his arms in front of his chest. His uniform sleeves were crisply starched. “Two weeks. You get a trial period of two weeks. You do all the training. Everything I tell you to. And when you decide you can’t cut it, you go back home across the wall and come up with some other crazy-ass plan to infiltrate the Crown. One that doesn’t involve me.”

“What makes you think we can’t cut it?” Blue planted her hand on her hip.

“Two weeks,” Ronan repeated, his jaw set and his glare furious. “Then I decide.”

“That’s not fair,” Blue said. “Do you do this to everyone who gets smuggled across the wall--”

“We understand,” Adam spoke swiftly, cutting her off with a hand on her arm. He needed to keep the peace here; he could feel the Forest’s magic simmering in his own pores. “Two weeks. No problem.”

Ronan sighed, long and put-upon, and then gathered up their illicit paperwork.

“Where are the others,” Blue frowned over at Adam, then back at Ronan. “The ones who crossed over already? Are you training them, too?”

“All of them,” Ronan muttered. “Now get back out there with the other recruits before someone suspects something. Keep your mouths shut. And don’t draw any attention.”

“When do we get our new IDs?” Adam risked another question.

“Jesus. You’ll get them tonight. Stay away from me out there, and don’t fucking look me in the eye.”

Ronan stalked out in a riot of loud boots and slammed doors. Adam and Blue exchanged worried gazes before returning to the courtyard, where their fellow recruits had gathered again.

* * *

Breakfast in the barracks the next morning consisted of runny eggs, tasteless oatmeal, and black coffee. Adam hiked his foot over the end of a long wooden bench and set his tray down with a clatter. The cafeteria was crowded with new faces -- mostly quiet, a few yawning, others wide-eyed and serious. There were a couple of noisy, dominant conversations among the more outgoing of this particular recruit class, but for the most part, everyone kept to themselves.

Adam let out a quiet breath of relief when he finally saw Blue making her way toward him at five minutes to six.

“I miss yogurt,” Blue said, sliding her tray beside Adam’s and climbing onto the bench.

“It’s been one day.”

“I also miss Mom’s pancakes.”

“Me too,” Adam admitted after a mouthful of oatmeal.

“Did you get your … um,” Blue’s glance shifted sideways, and she lowered her voice to a whisper. “You know? Shoved under your door last night?”

“Mm-hmm. Nice to meet you, I’m Michael.”

“Yeah, well. Look at this,” Blue reached into the back pocket of her Crown-issued khakis and pulled out her own fake ID. Adam had to respect the fact that they’d been somehow made to look naturally worn instead of suspiciously shiny and new.

Blue’s photo half-smiled at him from her Henriettan license.

“I mean …” Blue whispered grumpily. “Do I really look like a _Jane_ to you?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's named for a song by Small Black.
> 
> My playlist for this fic (where the chapter titles all come from) is [here](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0RUcQwlsdAXOQqzgdizZuJ?si=tOmpBuVoR3SeCYm0UDu_GA) if y'all are interested
> 
> Thanks so much for sticking with me on this!


	7. High Enough To Carry You Over

Ronan had clearly crossed a line somewhere and finally done something to piss off God.

That had to be why this was happening. It felt like a bad dream, and yet Ronan was painfully sure that he was wide awake. He couldn’t usually feel his heart thudding in his eardrums like that in his dreams.

The speedometer inched up as Ronan hit the highway in record time. He fumbled in his glove compartment for his mother’s rosary beads, letting them slide through his fingers and clack together, comforting, familiar.

He hadn’t even meant to drive all the way home, but it was happening as if he were on autopilot. He didn’t feel safe anywhere else in that particular moment.

When he pulled up in front of the farmhouse, he waved to his little brother and pinched his surprised and delighted face, then he went straight back to his mother’s room and sat with her until the sun came up. 

She was just as quiet and peaceful as always, just as frustratingly out of reach even though she was right there in the flesh, her golden hair fanned out in spun waves against the pillow.

Ronan leaned down from the armchair, rested his head on the edge of her bed, and remembered how she’d taught him to say his prayers like that, kneeling on the bedroom rug, forehead to knuckles. He remembered when he’d fall asleep immediately, peacefully, exhausted from running around the farm, nothing awaiting him behind his closed eyes except dreams of fireflies and music and superheroes and homemade apple cake with custard sauce.

_What is it you want from me? Why did you make me like this?_

* * *

Ronan had become fairly proficient at dreaming up new IDs for his refugee stowaway fighter squad. He’d practiced over and over, until he could pull it off in a single night. Sometimes it took fitful spells of sleeping and dreaming and waking and dozing off again, but the concept became familiar enough that he could focus more on the artfulness of it and less on the physical feasibility.

It had taken him six tries to make Adam’s, though. He’d shoved the failed experiments into the back of a cluttered dresser drawer until he could properly destroy them. The first two attempts had produced animations instead of still photos. Like some kind of hologram. Adam’s face cycling from laughter to shock to betrayal and back again.

He usually used the photographs provided in the paperwork as models for his dreaming, so he could make accurate fakes. With Adam, though, it was a little _too_ accurate. He had to focus on flattening his own mental image of Adam Parrish. It was one of the more difficult things he’d ever dreamed up, and he gave himself a migraine in the process.

On the first day of training, Blue and Adam had stood out like neon signs. For one thing, they were inseparable, clearly only trusting each other. For another thing, they slouched and hunched their shoulders, their eyes darting around nervously. Ronan still couldn’t believe he’d agreed to let them stay even one day, let alone two weeks.

Infuriatingly enough, he kept hearing Henry Cheng echoing in his head. The way he’d said subtlety was not Ronan’s strong suit, or whatever. It hardened Ronan’s expressions, turned his jaw to stone. It was exactly how he drew the strength required to let his eyes pass over Parrish without a second glance, shielding himself from those barely-contained gazes of anger and accusation, letting them bounce off his own carefully constructed borders.

He spent eleven days feeling Parrish’s deadly gaze creep up his spine, down into his fingertips like numbness. Then he’d close his fists again, exhaling it out, letting it fuel something else, some deep, inner coal fire burning between his ribs, unspoken and unbidden. He’d save that for later, when he could afford to feel things. Anything.

He could sometimes hear the more seasoned Guardsmen commenting and laughing as they passed the new recruits, declaring their bets for the first to advance and the first to drop out. It was the usual routine, but he still found himself standing in a way that blocked Sargent from view as she lay on her back, her elbows curling up toward her knees, pulling endless crunches. She was actually doing pretty well, persevering quietly, unlike several others in her cohort who were faltering and whining and making stupid fucking faces.

“Lynch. Lynch-man!”

Ronan’s attention had cleary wavered as he paced up and down the practice yard; Henry Cheng had managed to take him by surprise.

Ronan shot a glare over at Cheng, who had sprung out from God-knew-where, adjusting the angle of his mirror-gold sunglasses. It was overcast and well past sunset. Ronan rolled his eyes.

“Get off my training court,” Ronan grumbled, watching the rookies drag themselves through another set of pushups and jumps. He had to admit they were getting steadier, overall.

“Heads up, as they say,” Cheng sidled up and adjusted the cuff of his shirtsleeve. “Bronze Eagle Flying.”

“Too tired for your shit, Cheng. I’m working here. What are you talking about.”

“Does no one read my memos? My suggestions? For the royal codenames--”

“Still no,” Ronan growled. He could see well enough that Gansey was now approaching with his determined royal stride. He didn’t need another of Cheng’s ridiculous codes in order to figure that out for himself.

“Lynch. You do not deserve me, or even a single one of my ideas.”

“Can you and your _ideas_ get the fuck off my--”

“Ronan,” Gansey intoned, close enough now to hear and to chastise.

“What are you doing here,” Ronan grabbed both their arms and led them over to the side of the guard station, in a way that left no room for argument.

“Have I already missed meeting the … _you know_ ,” Gansey lifted his eyebrows a couple of times in a terribly obvious, conspiratorial way that Ronan absolutely dreaded. “The rebels? The refugees? What are we calling them?”

“ _We_ are not calling them anything,” Ronan shook his head swiftly. “This is not a group project. Cheng, get him out of here before he catches attention.”

“I tried,” Cheng smiled coolly. “He tends to insist on having free will.”

“Hey! Who said you could stop,” Ronan turned to his rookies, who would take any excuse to drop down and rest on the ground instead of following through on their prescribed exercises. In particular, he noticed Parrish and Sargent exchanging meaningful stares between themselves and back toward Gansey.

Ronan’s shoulders lifted slightly, and he pushed the prince further around the corner and out of sight.

“Which ones are Borderlanders,” Gansey asked intently, leaning around Ronan to peek and to pinch his lip between his thumb and forefinger. “Is it all of them?”

“No, it’s not fucking _all_ of -- Look, man, do you really need to be here right now? I don’t have time for a royal inspection.”

“I won’t make a whole spectacle of it, I just want to--”

“Don’t you have some special history professor kiss-ass discussion section to be at? On campus? Away from here?” Ronan said, his teeth clenching. Despite his efforts, Gansey was moving around him, his eyes curious as he took in the busy practice yard. Cheng, of course, was no help; he was peering down over his sunglasses at several rookies, examining them in turn from head to toe.

“It’s on Henriettan epic poetry,” Gansey said, taking another step into the yard. “And Dr. Gray had to cancel tonight.”

“Tragic,” Ronan muttered. He could see where Gansey was going, could’ve guessed it blindfolded. Straight over to the outer corner, staring down at Blue fucking Sargent, of course, who had paused in her exercises long enough to try and pin her hair back. She watched warily, glancing sideways at Parrish once or twice.

“Do you not have a minimum age requirement?” Gansey shot a look at Ronan. “She can’t possibly be old enough to be conscripted into military service.”

“She’s old enough, and she’ll be able to kick your ass soon enough,” Ronan grabbed at the back of Gansey’s blazer, trying to get him out of earshot. Gansey flicked him away easily with a twist of his shoulder, and Henry trailed alongside them, smoothing down the back of his hair.

“But she’s so … tiny,” Gansey gestured toward Sargent, and Ronan saw her eyes flash with something dangerous.

The other rookies had slowed to a stop, staring at the prince, some of them whispering and laughing, the others wide-eyed as they craned their necks to see what was going on.

“Something the matter, Your Highness?” Blue’s eyebrows lifted in challenge.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake. Samara,” Ronan said sharply. “Run this crew through the rest of the circuit and report to me in the morning if anyone slacks off. You two, shut your mouths and come with me.”

Ronan pointed at Blue and Adam and then spun on his heel, stalking away around the building. He knew they’d follow him. So would Gansey, who was clearly invested in the situation despite Ronan’s discouragement; and Cheng, who couldn’t resist drama under any circumstances whatsoever.

In the shadow of a nearby supply shed, Ronan opened his mouth and then closed it again, glancing around to see who might be within earshot. There were guards up on the palace walls, doing their usual patrols, and staff rushing around at random. Ronan couldn’t exactly launch into an explanation out in the open, not when this now apparently involved Gansey.

“Monmouth,” Gansey caught Ronan’s eye and lifted his eyebrows in a way that meant he was excited to be in on a big secret. “It’s more private.”

“Christ,” Ronan ran his tongue over his teeth. “All right, fine. Come on."

* * *

“What is this place,” Blue hissed to Adam, looking around at the high ceilings and one section of unfinished drywall.

Adam gave her a nudge and a warning glance, but it was pointless; Ronan could still hear everything she was whispering.

“Let’s make this fast,” Ronan stopped about halfway through the main room and folded his arms. “Gansey and Cheng know who you are and where you’re from.”

“That is me, by the way. Cheng is me,” Henry tilted his sunglasses up, nestling them into his hair somewhere. “Henry Cheng. Pleased to make your acquaintance! Officially. Executive Assistant to the Crown Princess. And I trust you have already heard of Prince Richard Gansey.”

Ronan saw Adam and Blue exchange looks of poorly disguised terror.

“No need to panic! We are all friends here,” Cheng continued, holding up his palms and grinning brightly. “Tell them, Gansey-man!”

“Of course. You are among friends here,” Gansey nodded. “Welcome to my home. I do apologize for the dustiness! Be careful of the open railings. And … well … Ronan’s obnoxious pet bird is always lurking somewhere. She gets in and out so easily! I need to track down her escape routes. No wonder it’s always so drafty in here, you know? Anyway, it’s a necessary evil, this place. I require some privacy for my research. I’m a student of Cabeswater’s Forest.”

“Which we don’t fucking _tell_ people,” Ronan glared over at Gansey, then toward Adam and Blue.

“Secret for a secret,” Gansey shrugged dramatically, winsomely, and stepped closer, holding his hand out toward Adam. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“I … Um,” Adam swallowed visibly, then shook Gansey’s hand. “Nice to meet you, Your Highness. I’m Adam.”

“Please! It’s just Gansey.”

“Right. Uh. Okay. This is Blue.”

“What is blue?”

“Her name,” Adam’s fingers clutched at each other awkwardly. “Her name is Blue.”

“I thought I was Jane now,” Blue muttered, narrowing her eyes at Gansey’s outstretched hand before shaking it much more firmly than Adam had.

“Jane! Ah. Lovely name.”

“It’s a fake name that I am forced to use. So I don’t get arrested here in your kingdom, Your Highness,” Blue raised an eyebrow. “For crossing your wall illegally. Do you understand that?”

“I would hardly call it _my_ wall,” Gansey drew himself up, his lips tightening. “I wasn’t exactly consulted.”

“The Crown Princess is really our number-one decision maker around here. The top dog,” Cheng cut in, physically inserting himself between Gansey and Blue.

“And you are her executive assistant?” Adam asked, his voice quiet and careful.

“The one and only! Impressive, right? Are you _very_ _impressed_?” Cheng waggled his eyebrows; Adam and Blue withdrew slightly toward each other, their arms rubbing together.

“All right, shut up,” Ronan raised his arms to get their attention. “Cheng, quit bragging, you’re freaking them out. Gansey, listen to me. These two are spies. They’re in way over their heads. You need to keep away from them until I can kick them back to Cabeswater. Cheng, start working out whatever your shit is to get them smuggled back.”

“Hold on, what?” Blue took a small step forward.

“You said we got a two-week trial, Captain Lynch,” Adam’s gaze snapped to Ronan. “Were you telling the truth about that? Or had you already made up your mind?”

Ronan looked up at the ceiling, running a hand over the short hair on his scalp, biting his tongue.

“What is it you want to accomplish,” Gansey asked without waiting for Ronan to respond. “Violence? War? Is that why you’re here training with Ronan? You want to learn to fight?”

“No,” Adam said quickly, decisively. Ronan watched Adam lick his lips as he clearly considered what to say next. “This was just … This was our only way in.”

“We want an audience,” Blue took over. “With your boss, Henry. The Crown Princess.”

Henry responded with a delighted laugh and a toss of his head, and then his eyes widened as he slowly noticed that no one else was enjoying the joke along with him.

“Oh. You are serious,” Cheng blinked.

Blue and Adam exchanged a long, silent gaze, Adam frowning vaguely but Blue nodding in a determined way, and then she opened her mouth again.

“My name is Blue Sargent. I’m the only known Tir’e’lentes.”

Adam’s eyes closed for a split second, and he pressed a fingertip to the crinkling spot between his pale eyebrows.

“The Forest Gods?” Gansey gaped. “Cabeswater’s ancient ones? You -- you have their -- you?”

“She’s a what, now?” Ronan’s gaze cut to Adam inadvertently. Adam’s shoulders lifted with a sigh of resignation.

“Her father is a Forest immortal,” Adam mumbled. “The Tir’e’lentes. They created Cabeswater. It’s their magic.”

“The fucking … tree gods or whatever that Gansey’s obsessed with?” Ronan looked over at Cheng, who just stared back at him with half a shrug.

“The point is,” Adam continued, more loudly this time, “we’re here for a good reason. We need to talk to your Crown Princess. About the wall, and your forest-killing expansions. And if you want us to train with your soldiers, for however long it takes, then … fine. We’ll do what we have to do. The Tir’e’lentes are on our side, and this is critical.”

“Nobody ever promised you an audience with a princess,” Ronan yanked off his jacket and tossed it onto a stack of wooden pallets. “When exactly were you planning on mentioning that?”

“When we passed your trial,” Blue planted her hands on her hips.

“Real confident for the tiniest goddamn soldier I’ve ever seen.”

“We didn’t know you were friends with the Crown Princess’s assistant,” Adam pointed out. Cheng smiled radiantly, and Ronan swore from the corner of his mouth. “Or the Prince himself.”

“The _Prince_ has nothing to do with your shit, and you can forget you ever set eyes on him,” Ronan said, his lungs compressing sharply.

Gansey, who only now seemed to be emerging from a deep stage of shock, shook his head a bit came closer to lay a hand on Ronan’s elbow.

“They’re not here to hurt me,” Gansey’s fingers dug into Ronan’s white shirtsleeve. “It was risky of Jane to reveal her heritage like that. And they’re risking a lot just by coming here.”

“You don’t know what the word _risk_ even means,” Ronan yanked his arm away. “I told you to stay out of this!”

“It’s better for me to know the truth. We’ll deal with the consequences together. This is what I’ve been studying for, Ronan! All these years. It’s finally happening,” Gansey breathed. “Can’t you feel it?”

“What I can _feel_ is that keeping you safe is a real pain in my ass sometimes.”

“Right back at you, Lynch,” Gansey pointed, and Ronan swore again, backing away and turning around, away from all of them. Gansey would know this as surrender, and Ronan didn’t want to see any of their faces anymore.

Ronan could hear the barely-contained, breathless excitement in Gansey’s voice as the prince launched into a description of his own study of the magic forest and Tir’e’lentes and God knew what else. He was actually inviting these two sly strangers downstairs, into his own private library and research space that Ronan went to great pains to keep secret from absolutely everyone.

“You’ve heard the Forest _talk_ to you?” Adam was suddenly asking, rather sharply.

“Well. I don’t know for sure. Maybe it was just a dream. A near-death vision,” Gansey replied in a hushed way. “They told me I really died, you know. When it happened. For a minute or so.”

Ronan could stand no more of this.

He unbuttoned the cuffs of his shirt as he stalked away, straight toward the fridge to grab for something -- anything. It was deeper than habit; maybe it was muscle memory now. He went for half a jug of orange juice, the plastic surface unsatisfying beneath the pads of his fingers. But he selected it anyway and retreated into the next room, stepping over Gansey’s obsessive and insomnia-fueled handmade miniature model of the palace and surrounding city.

He discovered Chainsaw there in the corner, pulling apart what looked like the cardboard gates from the royal cemetery.

“Quit,” he snapped his fingers at her. She puffed out her feathers in indignation, but she left Gansey’s arts and crafts alone and hopped over to Ronan’s boot, picking at his laces instead. Ronan sighed and let her stay busy as he leaned against the wall, frozen with too many fears he couldn’t name.

* * *

“ _That’s_ your pet bird?”

The sudden heat of Adam’s voice startled the shit out of Ronan. He jumped and felt a jolt all the way down to his gut. He had no idea how long he’d been spaced out like that.

“I was expecting a parakeet or something,” Adam continued, wandering in without any sign whatsoever that he was actually invited there.

Ronan was protesting this situation by keeping his fucking mouth shut, but Adam just wandered even further, reaching down to run his long fingers over the paper rooftops. Then he stood up and straightened his shoulders.

“Uh. Captain Lynch?”

“Don’t fucking call me that,” Ronan snapped, spinning toward Adam. “Not here. What do you want.”

“I, um. I didn’t know it was you,” Adam said, scratching absently at the back of his head. “When I heard someone here was letting Cabeswater recruits into the Guard, for training. I didn’t know.”

“So what? You’re pissed you have to see me again?”

“I just … is it some kind of trick? We’ve got people here training who swear they’ve had help inside Henrietta. An actual sympathizer. They trust you. I didn’t know it was you they were talking about.”

Adam was standing way too close, his fists jammed down into his pockets, his pale blue eyes taking in every detail. The hallway around them was dusty and deserted.

“I don’t pull tricks,” Ronan said.

“Yes, you do,” Adam said, his expression way too calm. “You tricked me before.”

“That wasn’t a fucking trick. I was going to tell you. I just -- you would’ve …” Ronan’s supply of words fizzled out with no warning, and he pressed his lips together.

“You could’ve at least tried to explain it to me.”

“Right. _By the way, I’m actually in the Royal Guard. My brother’s the Queen’s Commander._ I’m sure you would’ve taken that super well.”

“I would’ve …” Adam began, then turned his gaze toward the wall. “All right, fine, maybe not. But that doesn’t make it okay.”

“I know it doesn’t,” Ronan grumbled, sliding down the wall so he could sit down. He felt cornered, and he wanted to feel the solid stone at his back.

“Look, I want you to be honest with me about something, because I really can’t tell,” Adam said quietly, crouching down to test the strength of a chimney made from a folded-up postcard. “Is Prince Gansey for real about all this Cabeswater stuff? He’s, like … very intense.”

“Why would he be making it up? You think I haven’t tried to get him to do literally anything else? I don’t know. It’s his thing, whatever, I can’t talk him out of it.”

“Do you believe him? What he says, about how the magic saved him? When he was little?”

Ronan popped the cap off his juice, then snapped it back on again, off, on, off, on. 

“You don’t want to answer me,” Adam’s cheek bunched up on one side. “I guess that’s fair.”

“I didn’t ask if you thought anything involving Gansey seemed _fair_. What are you doing in here, anyway? If you’re so curious about his fucking motives? Why don’t you ask him yourself? Obviously you’re all friends now.”

“I dunno. I just … um. I’m sorry if I’m intruding, or something. I was curious about all these little models. You want me to go?”

“Do whatever you want, Parrish.”

“It’s _Parrish_ now,” Adam crouched near him, reaching down hesitantly to touch Chainsaw’s head with his fingertip. She preened and straightened at the first hint of attention.

Traitorous, rotten bird.

“Sometimes I wonder what would have happened to us,” Adam said as he smoothed down the feathers at Chainsaw’s chest. “Me and Blue, I mean. If you hadn’t come down there and intervened, when they were going to arrest us. I know you didn’t have to do that.”

“Yeah, I did,” Ronan leaned his head back against the wall.

“You know what I mean. If you didn’t want me to find out. You could’ve just walked away.”

“You really think I could have done that? Christ.”

Adam sank down onto the floor, but he didn’t answer Ronan’s question. Chainsaw abandoned him, clearly bored already, and flapped over to the windowsill.

“So, like … how have you been?” Adam asked, watching him carefully. “These last few months?”

“The fuck do you care?”

“I just -- it seemed like you had a lot going on.”

“Yeah, well. Who doesn’t.”

Adam bit his lip against a little smirk that made Ronan want to kick him out of the room. Out of the building. The motherfucking Kingdom, even.

“I ran in some bad circles before,” Ronan muttered.

“And you don’t anymore?”

“Not unless you count witchy fortune tellers from the Borderlands bothering me for no good reason.”

“Oh. That’s supposed to be me, is it? Do you really look down on us so much you can’t even say the real name?”

“What?”

“Cabeswater. My village. It’s called Cabeswater.”

“It’s not called that _here_.”

“Only because rich Henriettan assholes like to think it’s okay to erase our real name and replace it with an insult. Like we’re just … you know. Henriettan property.”

Adam’s words had a bitter edge to them, out of nowhere, but his gaze was focused over on the wall, and Ronan couldn’t quite tell whether Adam was being serious about this or not.

Ronan had never really thought much about it, anyway. The fucking map said _Borderlands_. It wasn’t like it had been Ronan’s idea to name it that.

But then again he supposed he’d never asked a Borderlander’s opinion. The only ones he knew were technically his subordinates. Fuck. Had he been shitting on them this whole time?

Ronan preferred to do his insulting consciously. Deliberately.

“Anyway, um. What’s with these paintings,” Adam pointed at one, then another of Ronan’s watercolors on the walls around them.

“I don’t know if they have this in the -- in _Cabeswater_ , but you take like ... a stick, with some fiber and shit attached to it, and you use it to swirl colors all around. On what we Henriettans call _paper_.”

“Okay, asshole,” Adam made a face, pulling himself up to his feet again and taking a few steps toward the nearest one. “Come on, I’m being serious. Does the prince collect art? Is that part of his research thing?”

“What makes you think it’s Gansey’s?”

“Um. I don’t know. Isn’t everything in here Prince Gansey’s? Technically?” Adam leaned closer to the canvas in front of him and frowned, studying it unwaveringly.

“You mean in the way that he’s the prince? Because, no. It’s _technically_ his older sister’s.”

“God, you’re annoying. Look, have you even really looked at these? They’re of Cabeswater’s forest. Like, specifically that forest. The trees, the colors, they’re …”

“They’re what,” Ronan hauled himself up and went over to remind himself which one Adam was ranting about.

“Maybe it’s only obvious to someone who grew up near there. They’re … _accurate_. Okay? That’s what I’m saying. They’re not just paintings of random trees.”

Ronan remained quiet for a while, trying to collect and conceal his several emotional reactions. These paintings came from the forest in his dreams, so it was more than unnerving for Adam to be claiming they were representations of something that existed anywhere outside Ronan’s head.

“Did he buy these from a Cabeswater artist?” Adam turned suddenly, fixing Ronan with a sharp, demanding stare.

“No.”

“Someone gave them to him, then?”

“He’s a prince. He tends to get whatever he wants,” Ronan took a step back uncomfortably. He really did not like the way Adam was so sure he’d seen these specific trees before.

“I wonder if they’re signed,” Adam squinted at the bottom corner, then at the other.

Ronan backed up more and more, leaving him to his pointless investigation. They weren’t signed; Adam could look around all he wanted. Ronan had never really felt like the kind of artist who would sign shit.

“Adam!”

They both turned toward the door; Blue’s voice was calling rather loudly from the other room.

“Adam?” she yelled again. “Where’d you go?”

“Be right there!” Adam cupped his hand around his mouth, directing his shout to the door. Then he dragged his eyes from the painting and glanced at the other ones like he wished he could spend more time with those as well. Ronan felt his stomach doing some kind of nasty accordion fold.

“Gotta go,” Adam said.

“Oh, what, you don’t want to stay and annoy the shit out of me some more?”

“There’s always next time, Captain,” Adam muttered, shoving his hands deep into his jeans pockets as he took his time backing up and heading back to the main room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry it's taking me so long to update this. I had rewritten the beginning and end so many times and assumed the middle part would be super easy to fix so it would be in line with the new stuff. I WAS SO WRONG. This one and the next one are taking me FOREVER.
> 
> I'm tired of messing with this one, so I'm putting it here and calling it finished. To the people who feel there are too many other characters involved in this story other than Ronan and Adam: I'm sorry, but the other characters are super important to me. You might have more fun reading a different story on Ao3. There are lots of amazing choices out there, and I won't take it personally :)
> 
> Anyway, it's almost CDTH time! Cheers!!
> 
> P.S. this chapter title is a CHVRCHES song


	8. Could've Been

Ever since Adam Parrish had taken up residence in the Henriettan Royal Barracks, the previously neglected groundcover of honeysuckle and dogwoods planted around the entrances had begun to visibly thrive. 

Adam would never admit it, but he’d been out there a few times, just after dinner, stealthily snatching at weeds and testing the soil with his fingertips.

He hadn’t meant to become invested in the palace plant life. But it wasn’t the flowers’ fault that they belonged to oblivious, oppressive monarchs.

He and Blue had somehow passed their first test: they’d been cleared by Captain Lynch to stay on as full-time recruits. If it had been solely up to Ronan Lynch, Adam strongly suspected they’d have been booted out at midnight on the fourteenth day. But Prince Gansey himself was now personally interested in their situation, and it seemed Captain Lynch was left with no real choice in the matter.

Specifically, Prince Gansey’s interest was in Blue Sargent, whether or not he realized it yet. Adam rolled his eyes as he examined the underside of a glossy green leaf.

It was a Sunday afternoon, their only day off from training exercises. Adam had spent the morning wandering the palace grounds, making note of entrances and exits, patrol routes, delivery security, and other minutiae so that he felt like he was making some sort of progress on his mission. He and Blue had stuck with their story of simply wanting an audience with Princess Helen, but in private they continued to note every routine Henriettan operational detail that might possibly prove useful later.

Adam was still undecided on Prince Gansey himself and whether his strange Cabeswater obsession could be considered “useful.” Blue had honed in on it immediately, asking endless questions of the prince, her eyes suspicious and fascinated at the same time. She claimed that Gansey’s interest was “weird but exploitable,” but Adam had his doubts. Even now she was off somewhere at the prince’s personal invitation, probably studying the way he reacted to her every deliberate provocation or mispronunciation. 

Were they at Monmouth again?

Adam stood up, brushing dirt off his jeans. He chewed at his lip for a moment and then set off in the direction of the prince’s strange, isolated hideout. Hopefully Captain Lynch would be off causing trouble somewhere else with his whiskey or his dirtbike or whatever.

There was a familiar-looking red Mustang pulled off crookedly behind Monmouth Armory. When Adam knocked tentatively at the same door Prince Gansey had shown them, the blonde punk-looking kid opened it. He squinted and tilted his head before exclaiming and grabbing at Adam’s hand.

“Adam! Hey! Ronan told me you were a trainee now! Do you remember me?”

“Um. Noah, right?” Adam hadn’t gotten a good look at him that night in Cabeswater, but he remembered the name, and the hair, and the excitable voice.

Noah’s face lit up like a small sun, his smile so wide that Adam could see the upper edges of his gums.

“That’s me. Good to see you again! What’s up?”

“I was just, uh … Do you know if Blue is here? Or Prince Richard?”

“Dude. Don’t let him hear you calling him that,” Noah laughed and hopped from one foot to the other. “It’s just Gansey around here. You want a beer or something?”

“So they’re … not,” Adam guessed, taking another tentative step inside and shutting the door behind him. “Not here?”

“Don’t think so. Haven’t seen them down here, at least. Maybe upstairs?”

Adam glanced dubiously toward the staircase just out of sight. It was a ridiculous building for a Henriettan prince to call home. Every corner huddled in cobwebs and dust.

“Mind if I go check?”

“Knock yourself out!” Noah laughed, shrugging and sinking onto a very weird carseat-turned-armchair.

Adam ascended the creaky stairs with caution, taking note of everything as if it would be helpful somehow. Strategically. The memorization made him feel like he was up to something productive and not just casting around for Blue out of boredom.

There was no one on the second floor, and the rooms seemed randomly furnished -- or not at all. This gave no hint as to whether Prince Gansey actually resided here or just used it as storage space for some kind of weird collection of wooden pallets and plastic bins. The only lights came from bare bulbs hanging on chains, or glaring fluorescent strips on the ceiling.

Still, someone had to be up here somewhere. Adam could hear music pounding through the ceiling.

He turned up another, dustier, more narrow set of stairs, and with every step his senses were more pressingly assaulted by bass rhythms and clicking drum tracks.

“Hello?” he called experimentally, but there was no way his voice was going to carry enough for anyone to respond. Even if Blue was up here and was currently attending some kind of obnoxious rave in the attic, she was still quite out of reach.

“Blue? Gansey?” he tried again, louder, once he reached the attic hallway. Still nothing.

To the left was a strange corner room that seemed like it’d been constructed as an afterthought. There was nothing in it aside from more artwork on the walls. This series was different: calm and peaceful landscapes featuring lots of golden wheat, green pastures, and gently sloping hills. There was also a large, elaborate structure with a birdcage at the top and lots of randomly jutting perches, hanging beads and feathers, some of those Henriettan coins with the square cut out of the middle strung like pendants, and several little mirrors attached at all angles.

All of these shiny and multi-faceted surfaces were suddenly shadowed in bluish black as Ronan’s pet crow spread her wings wide from the very top of the arched cage. She cawed a few times, loud enough to pierce the atmosphere of electronica, and then she took flight and dove right past him, back out into the hallway.

After she’d vanished, the music suddenly cut out.

Adam felt a nervous tremor in his hands and folded his arms over his chest. The silence was a stunning presence everywhere, surrounding him like wool.

Floorboards creaked nearby, and then Adam found himself staring at Captain Lynch.

He’d had the glimmer of a suspicion that the music would be signifying Ronan somehow; he didn’t think Blue or Gansey would be the ones blasting it. But still, the sudden sight was overwhelming.

Ronan was barefoot in yet another pair of skin-tight jeans and a black tank top, and it felt like his eyes were going to burn holes right through Adam’s head.

“What,” Ronan began, pausing for his bird to land smugly on his shoulder, “are you doing up here?”

“I thought I’d come see if Blue was here somewhere. Noah thought she might be upstairs with Prince -- with Gansey.”

“Yeah, well. This is my floor. So if you wanna creep around Monmouth and be nosy, then at least get out of the attic.”

“I’m not creeping around,” Adam sort of lied. “Even if I was. Your crow security system is top notch.”

“She’s a raven,” Ronan clarified flatly. “And her name is Chainsaw. And she knows not to let random creeps in her room.”

“You named her _Chainsaw_?”

Ronan rolled his eyes as if this were the dumbest or most annoying question Adam could’ve possibly asked, then looked over to run a knuckle over his bird’s feathers as she tilted her head side to side.

Something about Chainsaw made the hairs on the back of Adam’s neck stand up, his skin tingling with an unnamed anxiety.

As Ronan’s arm had lifted, Adam couldn’t help noticing a broad streak of dark green from his elbow halfway to his wrist. Adam took a few steps closer without really meaning to; he was trying to get a closer look.

“You’ve got something ... here,” Adam pointed at the same spot on his own forearm. “You know? Is that ... paint, or ...?”

Ronan ignored him and left him there, walking back the way he’d come. Chainsaw parted from him and dove past Adam again, making him duck. He got the distinct feeling she was enjoying freaking him out.

Ronan hadn’t closed the door behind him, and Adam had nothing else to do. So of course he gravitated down the hall until he could see what Ronan was up to. Which turned out to be: painting.

Ronan was painting.

There were two different easels in the room, one standing upright by the window, and another tabletop easel on the desk. Two ancient-looking file cabinets in the corner held up a tall, unsteady stack of canvases, and the desk also held piles of spiral-bound notebooks. Sketchbooks.

It took a good minute of registering the visuals in front of him before he could seem to make his brain accept the reality of it. There were paintings and sketches in various states of completion all propped up against the walls or spread out on surfaces, and Adam recognized his Forest again.

“You didn’t say anything,” Adam held a hand to his forehead; Ronan had turned his back and was casually resuming painting like he couldn’t give a shit either way. “You could’ve told me they were your paintings downstairs.”

“What does it matter,” Ronan grumbled. Adam could just barely make out the words from where he stood at the doorway. It was nearly impossible for Adam to catch things people said when they were across a room _and_ faced away from him.

“You must’ve realized I was curious. You didn’t have to lie to me about it.”

“I don’t lie,” Ronan spun around to glare at him.

“But you don’t tell the whole truth, either,” Adam walked over toward the desk, picking up a pastel sketch of a creek running beside a forest path covered with leaves. Beneath that was a pile of pencil drawings that all looked like ravens and towers and crumbling stone walls.

"This isn't something I owed you. Quit touching everything, Jesus, I’m trying to work here,” Ronan snatched up a couple of smaller sketchbooks and took them away, shoving them into the middle drawer of one of the file cabinets.

“Okay, look. I’m just looking for Blue. I think she’s out with Gansey somewhere, but I guess they’ll be back later. Can I just … hang out until then?”

“If you stay out of my way.”

“I’ll, um. I’ll sit over here,” Adam nodded toward a bright green chair-shaped lump in the corner. It looked like a bean bag chair, but with a high back. Adam felt a little ridiculous as he sank all the way down onto it, his legs folded up awkwardly.

“That’s Noah’s chair, but whatever, you’re gonna do what you want anyway,” Ronan said. He was aggressively dunking a paintbrush into a water cup, and then he grabbed a different brush and went back to the plastic palette nearby. He had it set up on some kind of antique nightstand. It was probably a priceless heirloom. Or had been, before Ronan had repurposed it.

Ronan’s constant bristling and grouchiness was irritating, but Adam couldn’t push away his own curiosity for long enough to stay mad about it. Ronan Lynch was the one who'd recreated these Forest scenes, apparently dozens of times, if not more. It was too much to comprehend.

“Why all the forests,” Adam rocked back in the chair, watching Ronan mix some white into a sky blue shade.

“Bowls of fruit get boring,” Ronan glanced up at him a couple of times, his face still nonplussed but losing its threatening edge.

“Sure, but there are a million other things you could paint if you wanted to.”

“I like trees, okay? Fucking sue me.”

“Yeah, well … so do I. The Forest is really important to me,” Adam swallowed. _Careful_. “I mean, it is to everyone in Cabeswater. It’s our heritage.”

“It’s not just your heritage,” Ronan dabbed his brush at what was shaping up to be a cloudy sky on the top third of his canvas. “I swear you guys act like -- like Cabeswater people are the only ones allowed to be there.”

“We’re the ones who have protected it for hundreds of years,” Adam tried to control the defensiveness in his voice, but even he could hear it after the fact.

“But it has other borders. It has connections on the ley line. Gansey is … you know, really fucking _Gansey_ about the forest and ley lines and magic and whatever, but he’s not wrong about it.”

“You say that pretty confidently.”

“Because I’m a Lynch,” Ronan sighed with true exasperation, again like Adam was missing something completely obvious. Then he turned back to his canvas, muttering something else, and Adam couldn’t catch the words.

“Sorry, I shouldn’t try to talk to you like this,” Adam realized aloud. He was too far away, and with Ronan turned in a different direction the sound wasn’t carrying properly.

“Fine with me. The door’s right there.”

“No, I mean -- I mean, I do want to talk to you, but it’s too hard for me to hear you this way. I’m deaf in one ear. You remember the story I told you, that morning? In the market?”

Ronan’s brush stilled against the painting. He turned slowly, his eyes narrow and assessing, like he could somehow see Adam’s deafness if he looked hard enough. It wasn’t that unusual of a reaction, but something about Ronan’s unwavering gaze still made Adam’s skin prickle.

Ronan didn’t ask any clarifying questions. He simply kicked a little wheeled stool over closer to Adam, moved his painting to the table nearby, and sat down to continue painting over there instead, as if he just wanted a change of location. He was much more within hearing range now. Adam bit his lip against a reluctant smile.

“So … what you were saying, about being a Lynch?”

“We have family land on the edge of the forest,” Ronan admitted after a bit of silence. He was eyeing his painting so thoughtfully that Adam had briefly wondered if Ronan had even registered the question.

“Okay,” Adam said. “So do other Henriettan families, though, right?”

“How much do you know about it,” Ronan picked up a pencil and sketched the barest suggestion of a line across a part of the canvas he hadn’t painted on yet. “About my father? My family?”

“Um,” Adam rested his arms on his bent knees. “I know who Commander Lynch was. I know he was a famous leader of the Royal Guard, and his father before him and all of that, because that family’s served the Crown for generations. And I guess you’re following in his footsteps?”

“My brother is,” Ronan turned the pencil this way and that, examining its point, then threw it at the desk on the opposite wall.

“Okay," Adam jumped. "But you’re … I mean … you’re also in the Guard, right?”

“For now.”

“Do you like it?”

“No,” Ronan muttered, picking idly at one of several leather strips fastened around his wrist.

“Then why are you-”

“Five-year contract, courtesy of my brother. Okay? Why are you so interested? You wanna write an article? Is that it? Are you some undercover journalist?”

 _Not exactly_ , Adam thought, but what he said out loud was: “No.”

“Do you think we haven’t seen people try that before? Some asshole from the _Sentinel_ got through the employee vetting and everything and got pictures of Gansey when he was, like, twelve.”

“I’m a just a soldier,” Adam ran an anxious hand through his hair.

“You’re a soldier who wants to fight for _Cabeswater_.”

“Yeah, okay,” Adam admitted. “We both know that.”

“That’s it, then. The real reason you’re here?”

Ronan had been looking away, avoiding eye contact, but now he gazed warily and challengingly back at Adam, studying him with a measured glare.

“Yeah,” Adam shifted uncomfortably. “I didn’t know … I mean … I didn’t come here to harass you.”

“You’d need to try a little harder. If you did.”

“I shouldn’t have reacted the way I did. Back then,” Adam said, and it was the first time he’d put these thoughts into real words. “I was scared, and defensive. About my family. About what the Crown might do to them. And to Blue. I should have taken more time to process it. To talk to you.”

“I was trying to help you,” Ronan leaned on the table, picking up a rectangular white eraser and tapping it repeatedly against the surface. It bounced distractingly.

“I know,” Adam shook his head. “I know that now. I know you wouldn’t have done anything to hurt us.”

“But I should have told you all of it.”

“I guess I understand now why you didn’t. Given the way I reacted when I found out. I still couldn’t seem to forgive you for it.”

Ronan frowned and got up to go and poke through a can of various paintbrushes. Adam took this to mean the conversation was over, but he wasn’t ready to go back downstairs yet.

“What were you starting to say before,” Adam tried for a different topic. “About your family. And the Forest?”

“Our farm’s out at the edge of the forest. On the Henrietta side. You can feel its energy there,” Ronan came back and laid a palm flat against the table. “It’s strong.”

“What’s it like out there? At your farm?”

Ronan’s mouth twisted. He looked over at the window, then back at Adam, his gaze swinging like a flat, level stroke of a sword.

He got up and strode away, across the room. Adam supposed he’d pushed too far this time; Ronan was ignoring him now, sifting through things on his art desk.

But then Ronan came back holding a large leather-bound sketchbook, which he promptly dropped into Adam’s lap without a word.

Adam began to page through the book, taking note of all the sketches, some in pencil and some in what looked like pastels. There was a huge and eclectic farmhouse depicted from different angles, several different barns and sheds, haystacks, and pages upon pages of serene fields and gentle hills with trees disappearing into the horizon.

“Did you do these from memory? Or out there at your farm?”

“Both.”

“I … wow. This is really where you grew up? I can’t even imagine.”

“You don’t have to, genius. That’s what the drawings are for.”

“Right,” Adam laughed, a little puff of air forced from his chest. “It looks beautiful there.”

Ronan shrugged and lifted his eyebrows in a way that said _no shit_.

“So who’s taking care of it, if you and your brother are here?”

“My younger brother. Matthew. Wanted to stay there and run things and take care of my mom.”

“Oh. Is she still … uh. The same?”

“Yes,” Ronan snatched the sketchbook back and tossed it behind him on the table.

“I’m sorry.”

“Whatever. It’s fine.”

Adam thought again, unbidden, of the tarot reading he’d done for Ronan way back when. Three of Swords, he still remembered. Sorrow and pain and loss. Adam didn’t have the gift for tarot, but he’d memorized the card meanings thoroughly enough.

“Why aren’t you doing this full-time? For a living?” Adam checked his watch; it was well past time for Blue and Gansey to be back.

“I’ve already got a job.”

“Which you hate.”

“I told you I’m under contract. It was the only way my brother would let me quit school before I was eighteen,” Ronan ran a palm over the back of his shaved head, and Adam couldn’t help speculating about the texture of it.

“You can’t get out of it? What’s the worst they would do to you? A fine, or something?”

“Yeah, maybe, but Declan … my brother’s the one who can keep me away from the farm. If I piss him off like that. At least until I turn twenty-one. Because of some shit written into my father’s will.”

“So then you can quit and pay some fee to break the contract? And do what you really want to do? You’re an artist.”

“Christ. You’re as bad as Noah. Give it a rest. I’m figuring shit out.”

“Does Noah bug you about this?”

Ronan’s flat stare was enough of an answer to that question. Ronan never cared to spare words when a dirty look would do.

“I suppose it’s lucky for me,” Adam picked at a hangnail on his left thumb. “For us. That you’re in a position to help us cross the wall.”

“You mean _us_ , like … you and that tiny tree elf?” Ronan muttered around a thin paintbrush he’d clutched between his teeth, studying his canvas again. “Or, like. You know. Cabeswater.”

“Is there a difference?”

“Good question,” Ronan’s gaze jumped to him, pointing the brush toward his chest. “I haven’t had anyone else contact me. From Cabeswater. Since the two of you. What’s your Council got planned, sending you two across?”

“I told you,” Adam shifted, averting his eyes. “We want an audience.”

“And I told _you_ that wasn’t part of my deal,” Ronan dropped the paintbrush on the table, abandoning his work entirely. “I said I’d get you into Henrietta without being tracked. And you get some basic training, as a -- a free fucking bonus, okay? But that’s it, there’s no going near the royal family. No princes or princesses. Period. I’m into the treason deep enough as it is.”

“So don’t help with that part,” Adam crossed his arms. “Nobody asked you to.”

“You think it’s better to ask Gansey, then? Or Cheng? You don’t get to ask them favors. You only met them because of me!”

“Maybe they’ll be more understanding of Cabeswater’s plight anyway.”

“More understanding?” Ronan’s eyes widened, and Adam couldn’t tell if it was from incredulity or anger or both.

Adam hauled himself out of the silly floor-level chair and came closer, perching on the edge of the table near Ronan. Ronan reared backwards, rolling away on his little stool, his glare heavy and poisonous at this intrusion.

“Look,” Adam drew in a breath to steady himself. “What were you even trying to get into, here? By starting your secret alliance with Cabeswater? Is it really that innocent? Just getting us across the border, and then you -- you wash your hands of it? You’re not responsible for any consequences? I mean, you’re not wrong, Ronan, about the treason thing. You could be in some serious shit for what you’re doing. We both know that. So why risk it for people you can’t even seem to trust?”

“I didn’t--” Ronan snapped his mouth shut, opened it again, and then swore, turning his head to the side and sucking in his cheeks as he conducted some kind of internal debate.

“You know what they’re doing to us in Cabeswater!” Adam started up again; he couldn’t seem to help himself. “You know it’s not right. Or else you wouldn’t have tried to help! So what’s the point if we can’t find a way to stop it once we get here?”

“I didn’t say you couldn’t try to stop it,” Ronan stood up with such force that the stool spun out two feet behind him. “I just -- I dunno, maybe I -- I didn’t think it through. At the time.”

“You didn’t think it through,” Adam repeated slowly, coldly, earning a scowl from Ronan.

“Fuck off,” Ronan rasped. “I mean I didn’t -- I didn’t think anyone would get near Gansey. He’s not part of this, or of anything! This doesn’t touch him and it never will and you’d better listen to me about this because I’m not gonna tell you again--”

“I’m not going to hurt Gansey! Jesus, Ronan, I’m not here for that,” Adam gripped the edge of the table, his knuckles turning white. “I don’t know him, but I know well enough to realize it’s not his doing. I’m not going to put him in danger.”

“But if you convinced him to let you near his sister, you’d take him up on it in a heartbeat.”

Adam clamped his lips shut, considering this and how to respond.

“And that’s why you’re here, isn’t it,” Ronan jerked his chin toward Adam in an accusatory little arc. “You know he’s obviously got a thing for Sargent already. You’re gonna use him for whatever royal access you can get. And why wouldn’t you? I know you’d do whatever it takes. You wouldn’t be still training with me if you weren’t out for blood.”

“Don’t talk to me about what we’re out for. You don't know. Henriettans don’t actually care what's happening outside your walls,” Adam pushed up away from the table, fury broiling beneath his skin. Had he used his own strength to stand up, or had he gotten a little boost of a Forest breeze?

“Who the fuck do you think you’re talking to? Who do you think got you here in the first place, asshole? Don’t take it out on me.”

“You don’t actually want me to do anything about it once I’m over your goddamn wall,” Adam stepped closer, his throat squeezing from the effort to control his temper. “You just want a nice, safe way to say you did something and to -- to feel better about yourself. You and your guilty Henriettan conscience.”

“It’s not my goddamn wall,” Ronan stared him down, and Adam held his ground despite Ronan’s height, the ice-blue smolder of his eyes, the growl in his voice, the towering expanse of bare shoulders and collarbones and biceps. “And I didn’t smuggle you over here just so you could pull some stunt and get yourself captured or tortured or killed or all three! Christ, Parrish. Why’d they have to send you? Is this the best your Council can do? Couple of kids to do their dirty work?”

“We’re the same age, Captain Lynch,” Adam glared, and Ronan’s gaze faltered as he let out an audibly frustrated breath.

“Why’d it have to be you,” Ronan repeated softly toward the floorboards, looking deflated.

Adam’s mouth felt so dry, suddenly. He licked his lips and stood there, but he felt sidetracked and bewildered. Ronan’s reaction had stumped him into silence.

Before he could figure out how to respond, there was a noisy commotion downstairs, doors rattling and footsteps clomping and laughter echoing.

“Don’t do anything stupid,” Ronan muttered. “And Gansey stays out of it.”

“I heard you,” Adam sighed. “You might want to tell Gansey that, though. I don’t think he _wants_ to stay out of it. I think he’s been waiting for something like this for a while.”

“Yeah, well. He can keep right on fucking waiting. You can go tell him I said that. He'll probably actually listen to you and Sargent.”

Ronan brushed past Adam, his eyes still averted. Adam stood there for another moment, but Ronan ignored him completely, stalking over to a box of paint tubes and digging through it with irritable flicks of his wrist.

They didn’t talk again. There was only the fluttering protest of Ronan’s raven making noise at Adam from the attic hallway as Adam retreated downstairs.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been forever, sorry, this fic is taking me way too long, yadda yadda, still wrestling with the middle parts and figuring out how to bridge myself back over to the parts that are all done, I'm making good progress this week though, k love u
> 
> (this chapter title is a RYD song)
> 
> ps I'm terrible and haven't actually finished CDTH yet, real life is a lot at the moment


End file.
